Reckoning
by Zim'sMostLoyalServant
Summary: Sequel to "The Puppet Master". Prime puts his plan for revenge into motion. A plan that will consume both Earth and Irk, and it all revolves around our favorite Invader. Rated for later chapters. COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Welcome to the first chapter of 'Reckoning,' the sequel to my first (and most popular) story, 'The Puppet Master'. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ IT, DO SO BEFORE GOING ANY FURTHER.**

**I know this has taken a long time to get up, but between school and a bunch of other plot bunnies running around my head, I haven't had the time. I hope it's worth the wait.**

**Disclaimer: Invader Zim and all related characters belong to the great and powerful Jhonen Vasquez. Prime, however, belongs to me.**

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**Reckoning**

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Seen from space, one wouldn't think the planet Irk was home to a warmongering race of conquerors. Illuminated by the light of the twin stars at the heart of the system, Irk's ammonia oceans could be clearly seen as they surrounded the planet's four continents. Once, these landmasses had boasted blistering deserts at the equator, which turned into beautiful grasslands and forests in the temperate zones, which stretched all the way to the tundra of the polar caps.

However, over the millennia, the Irkens had swept away these marvelous ecosystems, replacing them with mega-cities that stretched for hundreds of miles. At the center of the northernmost continent was one such city. Its name was Capital City, and it was… well, if you can't figure out what the city was used for, you must have a pretty low IQ.

Near the center of Capital City was a building that towered far above the others. This was Tallest Tower, which was nominally the residence of the Almighty Tallest. However, when they were off world, such as the current two were, it was used by the Sort-Of-Might Second Tallest and Pretty-Mighty Third Tallest. Of course, the Control Brains stored in a bunker underneath the Tower were by law in charge when the Tallest weren't around, so just what the Second Tallest and Third Tallest actually _did_ for a living was a complete mystery.

In any case, the focus of this narrative is not the Tower, nor the seemingly pointless nature of the Irken political system. Rather, it is the large crater on the outskirts of the city. Actually, "large" was an understatement, as it was easily a dozen miles in diameter. No one really knew how it had gotten there. The Control Brains had placed an Omega-Level security block on any information regarding the crater - which in laymen's terms meant that if any Irken, except the Almighty Tallest themselves, tried to view this information, they'd be executed for treason.

And why was this? Well, for the answer to that, one would have to look at the ruins buried underneath the crater…

XXXXXXX

In the half-destroyed tunnels that lay several miles under the bottom of the crater, a small form scampered through the centuries-old rubble. With its shaggy fur and long, hairless tail, it very much resembled the common Earth rat. If you ignored the fact that it had two extra legs and compound eyes, that is. Despite the Irkens' attempts to eliminate all inferior life forms on their precious home world, vermin such as this one had survived underground and in the sub-levels of the mega-cities.

This particular rodent, in its eternal quest for food, squeezed through a crack in one of the walls, passing into a large, seemingly empty space that had apparently held up better than the rest of the complex that had once existed where the crater now did. Suddenly, the rodent's sixth sense for danger went off. Before it could act on the instinct to flee, a large metal tendril swooped out of the darkness and wrapped around the rodent's body. It gave a squeak of fear as it was lifted into the air.

"Well, well," a deep, yet cultured, voice came out the shadows, "What's this? A visitor? I haven't had a visitor in ages." The terrified rodent was pulled towards the center of the massive chamber, where it soon found itself staring into the large red eyes of a metal monstrosity. "Do you know who I am, little rodent?" it asked. When no answer came - not that it was expecting one - it said, "I am Prime, the Primary Control Brain, and former ruler of the Irken Empire, master of an army numbering in the billions. Now look at me- reduced to living in the remains of what was once my great fortress, hiding my existence from the very beings I once commanded. Do you have any idea what that feels like?"

The rat continued to struggle in an attempt to free itself, letting out squeaks of terror. "Of course you don't," Prime said, "You're a mere vermin. How could you understand concepts like pride? Or power? Or loss? Or - most importantly - revenge?" Prime let out a laugh as he waved his "guest" around in the air. "That's right, little rodent," he said, "I will have my revenge against the Irkens and my brethren Control Brains for turning on me, and attempting to destroy me! They will _all_ pay! I already have the perfect weapon prepared… all I need to do now is wait for him to become truly ready." He paused, before asking, "Would you care to see?"

The rat bit the metal tentacle holding it in an attempt to make it let go, but that only resulted in broken teeth. Taking this as a "yes", Prime turned his captive towards a holo-screen built into the wall. With a thought, Prime activated it, latching onto the signal being transmitted by the PAK of a certain Irken Invader.

XXXXXXX

On the other side of the galaxy, on an insignificant blue-and-green planet called Earth, said Invader prepared to initiate his most brilliant plan ever. Of course, _all_ of his plans were brilliant, but this one was _extremely_ brilliant…

Zim let out one of his trademark evil laughs as he placed an explosive device on the top of the city cesspool's wall. "Yes, this is brilliant!" he yelled, shaking his fists in the sky.

"Ssshhh!" a voice off to the side said, "You're going to scare all the fishies!" Raising a nonexistent eyebrow, Zim turned to find GIR, in his dog costume, sitting on the other side of the wall with a fishing pole whose hook was lowered into the pool of garbage below them.

"Uh, GIR?" he said, not to sure how to put this to his child-like servant, "There aren't any fish in there."

"Yes there are!" GIR whined, holding up his latest "catch"- an empty box of fish sticks. Zim groaned as he rubbed the space between his contact-covered eyes. "Just get over here and help me!"

"Yes my lord!" GIR said, snapping to attention as he switched into duty mode. He marched over to Zim, and then promptly went back to normal, as he asked, "What are we doing again?"

Zim let out a sigh as he explained the plan to GIR for the tenth time that hour. "We are going to blow up the cesspool's wall, and watch as this filthy city and all its filthy human inhabitants are dissolved by their own filth! Then, this planet will be ripe for conquest, and all shall kneel before ZIM!"

"Not so fast Zim!" an annoyingly familiar voice shouted from behind the poorly disguised alien. Twitching with anger, Zim turned to find his human nemesis climbing up from the emergency ladder on the side of the cesspool wall. "I'm not letting you blow up the cesspool, Zim," Dib panted, trying to catch his breath from the quick climb, while still looking heroic.

"How did you know what I was planning, Dib-Stink? Have you been spying on Zim again?!" Zim snapped, getting into a fighting position.

"Well, duh," Dib said, tensing for a fight as well, "But even if I wasn't, you just shouted out your plan loud enough for everyone in a five-mile radius to hear."

"You lie!" Zim shouted, pointing a finger at Dib melodramatically.

"Whatever," Dib said, rolling his eyes, "Can we just get this over with? 'Mysterious Mysteries' is on in an hour, and I'd like to be to able to watch it."

Zim let out another mad cackle, and said, "Foolish Earth-monkey! Do you honestly believe that you can defeat a member of the Irken Elite?"

"In case you haven't noticed, Spaceboy," Dib said, in a slightly mocking tone, "I beat you every time we fight."

"SILENCE!" Zim roared, "It matters not what has happened in the past. This time, victory belongs to ZIM! GIR, hand me the detonator!"

"Okie-dokie!" GIR said, unzipping the top of his dog costume, popping open his metal head- and shooting a metal remote control device directly into Zim's face. Zim let out a grunt of pain and surprise, and instinctively backed up. Naturally, of course, he tripped over his own explosive device and went flying over the city side of the cesspool towards the sidewalk below.

Dib blinked in surprise, then said, "Wow, that was even easier than usual." With a shrug, he picked up the explosive and heaved it into the cesspool. After making sure it was beginning to dissolve, he started back towards the ladder. "See ya, GIR," he said to the robot, who had gone back to fishing.

"Bye-bye, Bighead!" GIR said, apparently not caring that his master had just taken a 50-foot plummet.

XXXXXXX

Speaking of Zim, he was painfully pulling himself out of the hole he had made in the concrete. Fortunately, he had landed on his front, so his PAK hadn't been damaged, and it was hard at work at repairing his injuries. Painfully readjusting his neck back to its normal position, Zim looked up at the still-intact cesspool wall. 'Well, there goes another plan,' he thought with a sigh, 'At this rate, I'll _never_ conquer this planet.'

However, he quickly pushed those thoughts out of his head. "No," he said, "I will not succumb to doubt. I _will_ take over this spinning ball of dirt, and then all will know that Zim is the greatest of all Invaders!" Zim paused as he realized that a hotdog vendor across the street was staring at him. "Uh, I am normal!" he said quickly, before running off. The vendor shrugged and went back to work.

XXXXXXX

Back on Irk, Prime laughed. He had watched the whole thing through Zim's eyes thanks to his private link to the incompetent Invader's PAK. Also thanks to that link, he had read those thoughts Zim had just had. "Yes, that's right, my pawn," he said with a chuckle, "Bottle up all those feeling of doubt and anger. The more you do, the more powerful your rage will be when I unleash it on the Empire. With me guiding it, it will consume all who stand against me."

Turning his attention back to the rodent in his grasp, Prime said, "You see, he's in denial about his shortcomings, but that'll only increase his anger when he faces them-" Prime stopped as he realized that the rat had stopped moving. Quickly scanning it, the Primary Control Brain found that its heart had stopped. Apparently, its fear had finally overcome it, and it had had a panic-induced heart attack. "That's a shame," he muttered, "I enjoyed actually having someone to talk to once. Oh well." With a flick of his tentacle, Prime sent the rodent flying into the shadows that filled the remains of his bunker.

"Back to work."

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**A/N: I know the ending's kind of abrupt, but you know what they say, "Always leave them wanting more." I'll try and make future chapters longer.**

**On a side note, I should mention that I drew much inspiration from two other stories: 'Astrobiological Analysis of the Irken Race' by Dr. Lovekill, and 'Namesake' by JoeMerl. If you're interested in reading them, they're both under my favorites.**

**Until next time, read and review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Welcome to chapter two of 'Reckoning.' I would have gotten this up sooner, but I'm also working on a parody of 'Young Frankenstein' over in the Cartoon X-Overs section, and I have yet to master the ability to seamlessly work on multiple stories at once. But, you don't want to read my excuses, so let's get this thing started.**

**Disclaimer: Prime is mine, as are Tallest Genek and Tallest Rankor. Everything else belongs to Jhonen Vasquez.**

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Zim walked down the streets of the city, cursing Dib under his breath. It had taken him weeks to set up that plan, calculating the size of the explosion necessary to destroy the cesspool and then the actual construction phase, and then in mere seconds, that interfering human had ruined it. 'Okay, so technically, it was GIR's fault,' Zim argued with himself, 'But if Dib hadn't shown up, I could have gotten the detonator myself, and this city would have been washed away in a tidal wave of corrosive liquid by now!'

Zim continued to curse and blame Dib as he entered the cul-de-sac where he lived and marched towards his house. "Welcome home, son!" the robo-parents greeted him as he walked through the door… and then started beating each other with dishwashers. The angry Invader ignored the faulty robots, tossing off his disguise as he walked towards the trashcan entrance to his laboratory. Popping it open, Zim hopped in and descended to the core of his base.

"Let me guess," the computer said in its usual bored monotone, "Your plan blew up in your face. Again."

"Silence!" Zim snapped, glaring at the computer cables in the ceiling, "I do not pay you to insult me!"

"For the millionth time," the computer said, "You don't pay me _at all_."

"Do not contradict ZIM!" the irritated alien shouted, "Now, open communications with the Massive. I need to report in with the Tallest."

"Yes master," the computer grumbled, before quietly adding, "But I don't think they really care."

"What was that?!"

"Nothing…"

XXXXXXX

Several light-years away, the distant light of the stars was blotted out as a huge maroon-and-purple form emblazoned with the symbol of the Irken Empire moved through the empty void of space. This was the Massive, the flagship of the Irken Armada. The size of a small moon, this one ship had the firepower to wipe entire planets out of existence. Add in the countless smaller ships flying around it, and it wasn't hard to see why the Irkens were the most feared military force in the galaxy.

Behind the glass observation screen in the middle of the ship's forward section was the bridge, where the Almighty Tallest, the twin rulers of the Empire, commanders of the largest army in recorded galactic history, were currently involved in a very important discussion.

"I'm telling you, Pur," Tallest Red snapped at his co-ruler, "Nachos are _way_ better than curly fries."

Okay, so they were just arguing about which snacks were better. No one ever said these two were _good_ rulers. Just insanely powerful ones.

"Oh please," Purple said, rolling his violet eyes, "They've got all that messy cheese that gets everywhere, and the spices always upset my squeedly-spooch."

"Oh yeah?" Red asked, "Well, let me tell you-"

"Incoming message from Earth," one of the bridge technicians interrupted.

"Oh great, it's Zim," Red groaned.

"Can't we just ignore him?" Purple asked, the earlier argument forgotten.

"He'll just keep calling," Red sighed, "So we might as well just get this over with. Put him on." This last part he said to the technician, who nodded and pressed one of the buttons on his console.

"Invader Zim reporting in, my Tallest!" Zim said, snapping a salute, as he appeared on the bridge's main holo-screen.

"What is it now, Zim?" Red asked with a sigh, "We were in the middle of something."

"My apologies, my Tallest," Zim replied, "But protocol insists that I update you on my mission on a regular basis. Plus, I thought you should know about this great plan I just attempted. I was going to melt the city with a tidal wave of the human worm-babies' own corrosive filth, but then-"

"Don't tell me," Red said, holding up one two-fingered hand to cut Zim off, "That big headed human you're always complaining about ruined it. Right?"

Zim looked a little nervous, playing with his antennae. "Well," he said after a moment's hesitation, "Yes. _But_, if he hadn't, I would have destroyed this _pathetic_ city, and then I would have conquered this _**filthy**_ planet!"

"How?" Purple asked, "According to you, that city isn't the capital, or even really that important, so how would destroying it help you take over the planet?"

Zim blinked and put on a thoughtful expression. "You know, I don't think I ever really thought about that," he said after a few seconds, before thrusting his arms into the air and shouting, "But it still would have been really cool!"

Red sighed and rubbed the side of his head. Zim was giving him a headache, as usual. 'Time to end this, before this moron goes into a rant,' he thought, before clearing his throat and saying, "Look, Zim, as _fascinating_ as I find this conversation, Pur and I are _very _busy."

"Yeah!" Purple said, trying to help stop Zim from talking, "We've got important, uh, leader-y stuff to do."

"Oh, okay," Zim said, sounding a little disappointed, "I'll call back later, then. Invader Zim signing off!" Zim snapped another salute and cut the transmission.

"…Leader-y stuff?" Red asked, narrowing one eye in confusion.

"It was all I could think of!" Purple snapped, crossing his arms over his chest, "Besides, this is _Zim_ we're talking about here. He'd believe us if we said his transmission was breaking up because we were going through a tunnel."

Red laughed at this. "Good point," he said between laughs, "He really is the stupidest guy I've ever met. Including you."

"Yeah… hey, what a minute!"

XXXXXXX

Unbeknownst to the two Tallest, they were being watched. The security cameras on the bridge monitored everything all the time, and then transmitted the footage back to Irk, where it was then transferred into the memory banks of the Control Brains stored underneath Tallest Tower. However, at the moment, the data feed was being spliced and also sent to the remnants of Prime's bunker. This was due to a previous hack by the former ruler of Irk, who had done so to insure that he didn't miss any important information.

Prime stared up at his holo-screen, watching the current discussion-turned-argument between the two Tallest. "Imbeciles," Prime snarled, "To think this is where the legacy of Genek has led. At least Rankor, may he rot in Hell, knew how to conduct the Empire when I was busy. With these two in charge, I'm surprised Irk hasn't fallen yet." Prime let out a chuckle, "Oh well, soon, so soon, these fools will be gone, and I will once again rule."

Prime turned his attention back to the conversation he was spying on as Purple said, "Why do we keep putting up with Zim, anyway? Every time he calls, it always the same thing: He's come up with some stupid new plan to take over Earth, but an hour later he'll call again to tell us it hasn't worked."

"Well, I guess you've got a point," Red grudgingly admitted, "It's not like he'll ever succeed. Even if one of his plans knocks the humans down, he'll need the Armada to completely subjugate the planet- and we're sure not going to help that defective dolt!"

"You got that right!" Purple laughed, "And it's not like there'll ever be anything that can match the Armada in strength!"

The bunker filled with Prime's laughter as he deactivated the holo-screen. "Oh, I wouldn't say that," he said, before turning on a holographic projector in the middle of the room. A purple hologram appeared of what seemed to be some kind of schematic. "Once I give this gift to Zim, he will be unstoppable, and you fools will pay for your ancestors' crimes! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

XXXXXXX

Back on Earth, Zim stared up at the blank communications screen for a moment before leaning back in his chair and saying, "Well, I think that went pretty well."

"If you say so," the computer said, "But I personally got the feeling they were just looking for an excuse to stop talking to you." Zim paused for a moment as he considered that. Was it possible the Tallest didn't like talking to him? However, he quickly pushed the thought from his mind, as he always did when it came to subjects he didn't like to think about.

"Nonsense!" he said, waving an arm dismissively at the computer, "They adore Zim!"

"If you say so master," the computer sighed.

"I do," Zim said, before his PAK let out a warning signal to show it was low on energy, "Hmm, it seems that my dedication to complete this latest plan has taken more out of me than I thought. Computer, I'm going into recharge, make sure no one disturbs me. Oh, and search for any spy devices. I think the Dib-Worm managed to sneak a few in recently."

"As you wish, master," the computer said, as it began scanning the Irken base for any human technology.

Zim smirked and got into a comfortable position as several cables emerged from the wall and attached to his PAK. He then closed his eyes and let his conscious mind shut down, allowing the PAK to start absorbing energy, and thus continue to preserve his life functions. However, his unconscious mind continued to be a storm of thoughts and memories, which was ever brewing and growing- and easy to manipulate.

XXXXXXX

Back on Irk, Prime would have smiled if he had a mouth. "Yes, sleep, my pet," he said, "And in your sleep, dream of destruction, and of revenge, and of my gift to you." As he said the last part, Prime latched onto Zim's PAK's signal and began uploading an information package. "It is nearly time. Soon, your rage will consume you. Soon, you shall become the perfect weapon. Soon, you will be unstoppable!"

Prime unleashed a mad cackle as his metal tentacles began waving wildly in the air. "Soon, I will have my vengeance, and Irk will burn!"

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**A/N: And there's chapter two. If you don't remember who Tallest Genek and Tallest Rankor are, go reread the first part of 'The Puppet Master.' I'll have the next chapter up as soon as possible.**

**Until then, read and review!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Some more plot development here- yeah, I know there hasn't been much action so far in this fic, but as my good friend Wormtail96 once said, good stories can't just be fight after fight. Well, actually, those may not have been his **_**exact**_** words, but you get the point.**

…**Know what? Forget I said anything. Just read the freaking chapter.**

**Disclaimer: Prime belongs to me. Jhonen Vasquez can take credit for everything else.**

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Zim sat in his command chair, his PAK hooked into the recharge machines, an apparent picture of calm. Suddenly, his antennae twitched, and he moaned. He shifted in the chair and gave a few more antennae twitches. If one were to look closely, they would see his eyes moving rapidly behind his closed eyelids. The reason for this? Most likely the dream… or more accurately, the _nightmare_ he was currently experiencing.

XXXXXXX

_Zim stood in one of the corridors of the underground Academy on Irk, where all smeets spent the first few years of their lives before it was decided what position they would hold in the Empire. Zim blinked in surprise and looked around. How had he gotten here? The last thing he remembered he had been in his lab on Earth. Hearing a sound further down the hall, Zim headed towards it to investigate. What he saw made him stop short in shock._

_Zim saw a younger version of himself being assaulted by a group of taller, older Irkens. "Leave me alone!" the younger Zim pleaded with the other Irkens._

_"Why?" one of them asked, "This is so much fun!"_

_"Besides, who's going to stop us?" another one sneered, "No one cares what happens to one itsy-bitsy little Defective?"_

"_I'm not a Defective!" Zim screeched at the Irken who had just insulted him- only to receive a punch to the face, followed by a kick to the side when he was on the floor. A few minutes of this beating later, one of the bullies said, "This is getting boring. Let's find something else to do." His friends agreed, and they walked off laughing, as they left Zim quivering in pain on the floor._

_Adult Zim looked on at this display, angry ammonia-based tears forming at the edges of his eyes as he clenched his hands into fists. He remembered this incident… and all too many like it. It happened time and time again, Irkens who were older and taller than him picked on him and hurt him, all because they felt like it. But the worst part was always when they called him a Defective. What made him defective? The fact that he was shorter than everyone else? Because he thought up ideas that were outside the accepted norm? Did that give them the right to treat him like dirt?!_

_And Zim had sworn, each and every time, that he would prove them all wrong. He would show them all what he was capable of. And most importantly, he would make them all __**pay**__ for all the pain they had caused him!_

_**YES, YOU SHALL.**_

_Zim's eyes widened in surprise. Those thoughts were in his head, but it wasn't his voice that had spoken them. His voice was high and shrill (not that he'd ever admit it); this voice was deep and pleasant to be heard. Zim spun around to try and see who had spoken, only to find that the scene had changed._

_Zim was now floating high above Capital City. Suddenly, and without any warning, bolts of energy fell from the sky, reducing buildings to rubble and vaporizing any Irken unlucky enough to be hit by them._

_**MAKE THEM ALL PAY ZIM. NOT JUST THE BULLIES FROM YOUR YOUNGER DAYS, BUT THE WHOLE EMPIRE, WHICH MOCKS YOU BEHIND YOUR BACK EVERYDAY. THEY MUST ALL SUFFER, AS YOU HAVE SUFFERED. BUT WHY SETTLE FOR JUST THEM?**_

_The scene changed again, showing the human city Zim currently lived in. The previous sequence of events repeated itself as death rained down on the city._

_**THE HUMANS MOCK YOU ALL THE TIME AS WELL. YOU, WHO ARE SUPERIOR TO THEM IN EVERY WAY. THEY DESERVE THIS FATE EVERY BIT AS MUCH AS YOUR FELLOW IRKENS.**_

_Zim now found himself floating in space, Earth and Irk before him, side-by-side, despite being on opposite sides of the galaxy. Both burned bright red from the fires raging across their surfaces. As Zim watched, the glow from the fires grew brighter and brighter, until it wasn't two burning planets the Invader was looking at, but two glowing red eyes. The eyes seemed to burn into his soul, filling him with a terror he'd never felt before, a terror of what would happen if he didn't do exactly as the voice belonging to these eyes commanded._

_**THEY ALL MUST PAY ZIM. THEY ALL MUST DIE!**_

_The glow from the eyes continued to grow, until they finally exploded, leaving Zim temporarily blinded._

XXXXXXX

A universe away, and at the same time only a few miles, Dib Membrane sat at his computer, attempting to access the video feed from one of the spy cameras he'd planted in Zim's base earlier that week. He muttered a few curses under his breath when he found that they'd all been disabled. "Come on, there's got be something," he said with determination in his voice. A thought suddenly hit him.

Dib typed away furiously at his keyboard, activating a specialized radio he'd hidden in Zim's yard. If he could just find the right frequency, he could listen in on any transmissions coming from or going to Zim's base. "Come to think of it, I should even be able to use my equipment to translate it into images," Dib mused, a grin splitting his face, "I'll be able to spy on Zim every time he talks with his leaders, or any of his other alien buddies!" Dib paused as a thought came to him. "And… I'm talking to myself… Again. I really need to stop doing that."

His computer pinged, indicating that it'd found something on an unusual frequency. "Unusual" in this case meaning "non-human." Dib tuned the radio to the frequency, and jumped in surprise when a loud shrieking noise came over his computer's speakers. "Keep it down up there you idiot!" Gaz yelled from the living room, "I'm only three levels away from beating this game, and if you make me lose, I will make you suffer!"

Dib winced, and quickly turned the volume on his computer down. "Sorry, Gaz!" he shouted - he still had bruises from the last time he'd ticked her off. Turning his attention back to his computer, he entered the command to beginning translating the noise into images. "Let's see who you're talking to Zim…"

XXXXXXX

Back on Irk, Prime watched with satisfaction as Zim reacted to the images and knowledge being poured into his mind. The mental torture was a bit extreme, but it was necessary. It would dig up all the anger Zim had repressed over the years, which would then fuel his revenge against the Tallest when the time came.

Prime's musings were cut short when an alarm went off. Someone was hacking his signal. For a moment, fear gripped him. Had the others finally realized he was alive? Prime quickly scanned the signal to find the source of the hack, and when he did his fear was replaced with rage. "Insolent mammal!" he snarled, "You dare to interfere with my plans, Dib? I think not."

Prime reached out with his mind, allowing his consciousness spread along the signal to the hack, and into Dib's computer.

XXXXXXX

Dib watched, both horrified and fascinated, at the images that appeared before him on the screen. There were pictures of what must have been Irk, interspersed with pictures of Earth, followed by images of both being destroyed. "Jeez, what is all this stuff?" Dib asked. Suddenly, the screen went black. "What the-!" Dib's cry of outrage and surprise was interrupted when a message in blood-red letters appeared on the screen.

**DO NOT INVOLVE YOURSELF IN MATTERS THAT DO NOT CONCERN YOU, HUMAN. THIS IS YOUR FIRST, LAST, AND ONLY WARNING.**

The message disappeared as sparks flew from the computer. Dib leapt back as the desktop completely fried itself. After a few moments, the sparks stopped, leaving a burnt-out husk of a machine. Dib stared at it, only one question going through his mind: What the Hell just happened?

XXXXXXX

_Zim was floating in darkness. After the eyes had exploded, everything had faded from sight, leaving him alone in an empty void. All of a sudden, a shape appeared in front of him, and as it came closer, he was able to ascertain its details._

_It was a ship, but none like Zim had ever seen before. It looked almost like a hypodermic needle, only made of a metal that was painted a dark purple, almost black. In place of a "plunger" in the back was a large ion engine, the energy trail being released from it burning a bright blue. The central section of the ship was a large tube that had to be at least four or five miles wide, and three times as long. Upon closer inspection, Zim could see that the surface - that appeared smooth from a distance - was actually covered with all sorts of weaponry. Laser turrets, missile tubes, and even more primitive rail guns. The tube section ended abruptly in a flat section, from which extended the actual "needle," a long metal tube, smaller and narrower than the central section, without any weapons attached._

_Looking at it, Zim realized it was actually an energy conductor, like the ones used on Irk to transmit energy from the power plants to where it was needed. The only difference (aside from its size, of course) was that it just ended in an opening. A few moments of looking at it later, Zim suddenly realized what it was for - it still conducted energy, in this case from the ship's generator, focusing it into a beam of raw destructive power, which would then be released from the opening at the end and sent towards its target._

_All of a sudden, the ship turned. Before, Zim had been looking at it from the side, but now he was staring right down the energy conductor… which was starting to glow. Zim's eyes widened in fear, and he tried to run. However, he didn't get far before the conductor opened fire, and his world went white._

XXXXXXX

Zim's eyes snapped open as he let out a scream and fell from his chair, the recharge cables disconnecting from his PAK. "Master? Are you alright?" the computer asked, actually sounding concerned for once. Still shaking a little, Zim pulled himself to his feet and composed himself. "Yes," he said after a moment, "It was just a dream. Rather intense, I'll admit, but a dream nonetheless." Dreams were not uncommon during recharge, but Zim had never had one that intense. It had almost felt _real_.

Thinking about the dream, Zim pictured the strange ship he had seen. He had to admit, it really was quite impressive. If only he had one like it. 'But why settle for one,' he thought, 'with a fleet of such ships, I'd be unstoppable. This planet would kneel before me!' Zim threw back his head and let out one of his trademark laughs.

"Err, are you feeling all right?" the computer asked - usually, Zim had a reason to do his maniacal laughing. This time, it seemed unprovoked.

"Oh, I'm fine," Zim said evilly, rubbing his gloved hands together, "I just dreamed up the perfect weapon with which to crush this pathetic mud ball. It shouldn't be too hard to build a fleet of the ships I envisioned." Zim let out another laugh, "I am a genius!"

XXXXXXX

Prime let loose a laugh of his own. The schematics he'd uploaded into Zim's subconscious during the dream were his crown jewel: The ultimate combat vessel. If he'd thought them up a few millennia earlier, the Empire probably would have conquered the whole galaxy by now. By giving Zim access to these weapons, his plan was now foolproof.

"All I need now is the proper catalyst," Prime mused, "Then Zim's rage will be awakened, and my plan can finally begin. Soon, it shall all be mine, as it was always meant to be."

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**A/N: Wow, this chapter turned out a lot longer than I expected it to. Once again, I feel like the ending's too abrupt, but it's the best I can offer.**

**Read and review!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Welcome to the next chapter of 'Reckoning.' This is quite possibly the most important chapter in the first half of the story. Why? Well, you'll just have to read to find out, won't you?**

**Disclaimer: Prime and the Devastators are products of my imagination. Everything else is from Mr. Vasquez's head.**

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Zim worked all day and long into the night on his new vision of conquest. Working off his memory of the ship's appearance, the Invader was able to design the schematics on his computer. Strangely, he was able to do so much quicker than usual, almost as if the blueprints were imprinted in his brain…

Shaking that distracting thought from his mind, Zim refocused on the task at hand. Once done with drawing up the schematics, Zim sent them to an automated factory he'd built on the dark side of the moon several months earlier for the purpose of developing new weapons - which, technically, it was doing. "Master," the computer said, "The factory has begun construction of the ships. Given the size of each one, and the materials necessary, I currently estimate it will take three days to create a sizeable fleet. By the way, you never did tell me what you intend to call these things."

"Oh, that's simple," Zim said, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head, "I have designed these ships for the sole purpose of devastating my enemies. Therefore, I shall call them… Devastators!" On that last note, Zim removed one hand from behind his head to point one finger in the air in a dramatic fashion.

"Clever," the computer's tone indicated that it would have rolled its eyes if it had any, "Anyway, I think you should be aware that it's nearly time for Skool."

Zim looked up from the computer screen to a conveniently placed coo-coo clock on the wall. "Damn," Zim muttered, "Oh well, I've put up with the _disgusting _human educational system for two years now, I suppose I can deal with it for a few more weeks."

Zim got up from his chair and entered the trashcan elevator. He rode to the house level of his base, put his disguise back on, and walked over to GIR, who was eating from a bowl of popcorn and watching the 'Scary Monkey Show.' "_That monkey,_" Zim muttered, before shaking his head and saying, "GIR, I'm going to Skool. Make sure no one enters the base while I'm gone - and I mean _no one_. Not the pizza delivery human, not one of those annoying girl drones selling cookies, not the Avon lady, NO ONE! Got it?"

GIR's eyes flashed red as he switched into duty mode. "Understood, sir!" he said, snapping a salute. Then, his eyes changed back to blue and he slammed the popcorn bowl onto his head with a laugh. Zim sighed and turned his attention to the ceiling, "Computer?"

"I'll lock the base down once you leave," the computer said, as GIR ran around with the bowl on his head… until he slammed into a wall. Zim heaved another sigh and walked out the front door.

XXXXXXX

Zim sat at his desk in the classroom, not paying attention to Ms. Bitters as she went through another of her "Doom" speeches. Why was Ms. Bitters there, you ask? Well, due to some sort of error on the school board's part, the old crone… err, woman, had moved up with Zim, Dib, and the rest of the class as they progressed through the educational system. By this point in time, the class no longer feared her (at least, not as much), as they'd gotten use to her demon-like movements and her threats to send them to the underground classroom.

Back to the present, Zim sat at his desk, fingers pressed against each other, lost in his thoughts. 'Soon, I will no longer have to hide among these pathetic pig-smellies," Zim thought, 'Once the Devastators are complete, I'll destroy them all, and claim this world for the Tallest!' Zim nearly burst out laughing, but stopped himself. Despite what people thought, Zim _did_ learn, and he'd learned that Ms. Bitters didn't like him interrupting class with pointless, maniacal laughter. The last time he'd done so… well, let's just say it was not pleasant.

The bell rang just then, pulling Zim from his thoughts. "Doom, doom, doom," Ms. Bitters continued for a few moments before saying, "Class is dismissed. Now go waste your lives somewhere else." The students poured out of the building, Zim walking calmly out of the doors after everyone else had gone - he'd also learned not to try and leave the building too soon, as it risked bodily harm.

"Zim," Dib's voice from behind made the poorly disguised Irken stop on the Skool steps. Zim turned around to see his arch-nemesis leaning against the wall of the building, his arms crossed over his chest, and a serious expression on his face.

"Dib," Zim practically spat the name out, "Come to rub it in my head that you beat me yesterday?"

"That's 'rub it in your face,' alien," Dib said, rolling his eyes, "And this isn't about that. This is about that transmission you got yesterday. I don't know how you knew I was monitoring it, or how you hacked my computer-"

"What are you talking about?" Zim asked, one eye narrowed in confusion, "Zim received no transmissions yesterday - and I wouldn't waste my time hacking into your pathetic, primitive computers. Not that I couldn't if I wanted to, bear in mind."

"Don't play games with me, Zim," Dib said, walking up so that he and Zim were eye-to-eye, "I know what I saw. You're planning something, and I'll figure out what it is. Then I'm going to stop you, and then I'm going to expose you for the monster you are, and then-"

"Blah, blah, blah," Zim said, flapping one three-fingered hand in a 'blabbing mouth' movement, "Zim has no time to waste listening to the nonsense coming out of your big head of stink. I have things to do. And just to make sure you don't interfere this time…" Zim smirked, revealing his zipper-like teeth, and jumped back.

Before Dib could react, two of Zim's spider legs emerged from his PAK and shot some sort of foam at Dib's feet. Dib tried to move, but found that his feet were now stuck to the sidewalk. "Hey, what gives?" he asked, as he tried and failed to so much as get his feet to budge. Zim let out a long laugh.

"Oh, just a new invention of mine," he gloated, "An instant adhesive made from a combination of glue and cement. Good luck getting out."

With a final laugh, Zim turned his back on Dib and walked off. "Zim! Get back here! Zim!" Dib shouted, but the Invader ignored him. Dib seethed, as he tried to pull his legs free, "I _hate_ that guy."

XXXXXXX

Once Zim got home, he mumbled a greeting to GIR (who had apparently left at some point, because he was now drinking from a SuckMonkey) and then went back down to the lab. "Computer, status on the Devastator fleet!" he commanded the moment he cleared the elevator.

"Devastators 1, 2, and 3 are complete. Devastators 4 and 5 are 75 percent complete. The factory is already beginning work on the rest."

"Excellent," Zim said, grinning, "The Tallest will be pleased. Contact the _Massive_ immediately!"

The computer was silent for a few moments, before it said, "Master, you just called them _yesterday._"

Zim snorted, "That was _before_ I came up with this plan. They must be informed at once, to know to get the Armada ready for the Organic Cleansing!"

"If you insist. But don't say I didn't warn you," the computer sighed. However, it did as it was told, and opened up a communications channel with the Irken flagship.

XXXXXXX

"Incoming transmission from Earth," the same bridge technician said. The Tallest, who were helping themselves to doughnuts, looked up.

"_Again_?!" Purple asked, "He just called us yesterday!"

Red, looking annoyed, threw his bag of doughnuts off to the side, where a bunch of bridge officers instantly dog-piled it. "I've been thinking," he said.

"Yeah?" Purple asked.

"You were right, Pur," Red said, narrowing his crimson eyes, "This little charade we've been pulling on Zim has gone on long enough. He'll keep calling us until he conquers that planet - which he _won't_. Which means we'll have to put up with him until the day we die. So, let's end this." Red turned his attention to the technician. "Put him on."

XXXXXXX

"Dance, puppets, dance," Prime said, his optics glowing with pleasure as he watched his holo-screen, which was currently showing the hacked video feed from the Massive's bridge. "Do it, you fools. Make him face his faults. Trigger his rage!" He had to stop himself from bursting out laughing at the excited, hopeful look on Zim's face as he appeared on the bridge's holo-screen. He wanted to hear this…

"Invader Zim, reporting in, my Tallest!" the short Irken said, snapping a salute, "I have important news!"

Red and Purple shared an eye roll before Red said, "Yeah, I'm _sure_ you do, Zim. It's _always_ 'important' news with you. But listen-"

Before Red could go any further, Zim cut him off. "Oh, I know I say this every time, but I've finally come up with a brilliant plan to conquer this spinning ball of dirt!"

"Listen, Zim-" Red once again tried to speak, only to be interrupted.

"Actually, I'm surprised I didn't come up with something like this sooner. But I suppose it's like they say- the answer's always right in front of your face."

"Zim, would you just-"

"You know, my Tallest, you may not have to actually do anything. I'll do all the hard work and-"

"SHUT UP ALREADY!"

Zim jerked back, the bridge technicians looking on gasped, and even Prime shuttered his optics in surprise. Not so much at the outburst, but at the person it came from - Purple. Realizing that everyone was staring at him, the violet-eyed Tallest smiled sheepishly and said, "Sorry. But that was getting annoying."

Red gave his co-ruler one last look, before turning back to Zim on the screen, and said, "Now then, Zim, there's something important I have to tell you."

"Oh, okay," Zim said, "Go ahead." Red paused, most likely trying to savor the moment, and then said two simple words that would (although he didn't know it yet) doom him and the whole Empire.

"You're fired."

Zim blinked, confused, and said, "Come again?" Red narrowed his eyes dangerously. He obviously wanted to get this over with. "Are you deaf or something? I said you're fired. We don't have any further use for you."

Purple turned to look at Red, a confused look on his face. "When'd we _ever_ have any use for him?" he asked.

"But, but," Zim stammered, looking scared and confused, "What about my mission? I'm not done yet."

Both Tallest looked at each other, and then burst out laughing.

"Your _mission_?" Red laughed, "Your so-called 'mission' doesn't exist, Zim. Remember the Great Assigning? We just pointed at a random part of the map. We didn't expect you to actually find a planet."

"Yeah," Purple added, "We decided to let you rot there, since it'd be easier than going out of our way to terminate you."

Zim looked at them, remaining silent for a few moment, before laughing, "Good one," he said, "I actually thought you were serious for a minute."

Red growled - clearly, his patience was running low. "We _are_ serious, you stupid little Defective," he snapped.

Zim froze where he stood, and via his connection to Zim's PAK, Prime could feel his repressed rage suddenly rising to the surface, no doubt being fueled by the memories he'd re-lived the night before. Zim's hands clenched into fists, and he shouted, "I am not a Defective!"

The Tallest blinked in surprise, caught off guard by the anger being directed towards them, but they quickly recovered.

"Not according to the Control Brains on Judgementia," Purple said, "Remember that? You're such a Defective, you drove them crazy!"

Red nodded, agreeing with Purple, "Yeah, if that hadn't happened, we could have gotten rid of you a long time ago. But look on the bright side- since we're just exiling you, you don't get killed. You get to live. On Earth. For the rest of your life." Red started chuckling, "Have a nice 'retirement,' Zim!"

Both Tallest burst out laughing, while on the holo-screen, Zim looked on with a mixture of shock, anger, and sorrow on his face. Prime deactivated his own holo-screen, but his connection to Zim's PAK remained open. And through that, Prime could feel those same feelings swimming through the now ex-Invader's mind. The shock and sorrow were incredibly strong, but the lifetime's worth of anger buried in Zim's subconscious far outweighed the other emotions. All it needed now was a little nudge in the right direction.

"And now," Prime said, "it begins. Ha, ha… ha, ha… ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha!!!"

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**A/N: So, what do you think? Did I follow the "Zim gets fired by the Tallest" cliché to the letter, or was I a little more unique than that? Next chapter, Zim deals with the truth of his situation, and Prime reveals himself.**

**Until then, read and review!**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Welcome to the next chapter of 'Reckoning.' Sorry it took so long to get up, but I had a few finals to take.**

**Last chapter, Zim found out the truth about his mission and was exiled on Earth. How will he react to this? Read on. Warning: the chapter starts off kind of angsty. So, if you don't like angst… well, sorry. Can't help it.**

**Disclaimer: Invader Zim and all related characters belong to Jhonen Vasquez. Prime and the Devastators belong to me.**

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GIR sat on the couch watching the television, bored out of his mind. Of course, that could have been because the TV currently wasn't on. Apparently, a fuse or something burned out due to his constant viewing of the 24-hour "Scary Monkey" channel. It would have been an easy fix under normal circumstances… but then again, GIR wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier.

So, with his main source of entertainment out of commission, GIR fell back on his backup- going down to the lab and "playing" with Zim. With a high-pitched squeal, GIR jumped off the couch and headed towards the kitchen.

"Um, I wouldn't go down there if I were you," the computer said.

"How come?" GIR asked, looking up at the ceiling. The computer paused for a few moments, apparently trying to find the right words. Eventually, it said, "Master's… very upset right now. He just got some bad news from the Tallest."

GIR nodded, saying, "I understand," and then shouted, "I'll go give him a hug and make him feel all better!" And with that, GIR jumped head first into the toilet entrance to the lab.

"Your funeral," the computer sighed.

XXXXXXX

GIR came flying out of the pipe connected to the toilet entrance with a "WHHHHEEEE!" and slammed into the wall. He dizzily got to his feet, but shook it off and headed towards the main chamber. As he did, he heard Zim shouting, and paused. This didn't sound like Zim's usual shouting. Usually, Zim sounded happy when he shouted, now he sounded furious.

_Crash_!

And then there were all the sounds of things being broken. GIR carefully poked his head into the central control room just in time to see Zim rip his command chair out of the floor it was bolted to and, with a roar of rage that sounded almost animalistic, throw it at the main screen of the computer bank. The rest had already been smashed, and the keyboards had been ripped apart. Judging by the green Irken blood that was stained on the ruined equipment, and that was also currently seeping out of Zim's torn gloves, he had done all this with his bare hands.

None of this registered with GIR, however. All he saw was that his master was upset, and GIR didn't like seeing his master upset.

"Aw, someone needs a hug!" he said, running forward and wrapping his arms around Zim's leg. This turned out to be a mistake, as Zim grabbed GIR by his antenna and lifted him up so they were eye-to-eye.

"A _hug_?!" he seethed, "I don't need a _hug_, GIR! I do not _want_ a hug! What I _want_ is the last two years of my life back!" Zim lifted GIR over his head and threw him at the wall. GIR hit it so hard he actually left a dent. The faulty SIR wasn't hurt, just confused.

Zim paced angrily around the room, launching punches and kicks at random pieces of equipment. "How _dare_ they?" he snarled, "How _dare_ the Tallest do this to me?! I have been loyal to the Empire since the day I hatched from the smeet tube! I have followed the word and order of the Almighty Tallest for 156 years! And now they just toss me aside like garbage!!!" With a screech of fury, Zim fell to his knees and started pounding on the floor with his fists. After a few seconds, he extended his spider legs and started wildly slashing the floor with them as well. This proved to be a mistake, however, when one of the legs slashed through a power cable. A few thousand volts of electricity ran up through the leg into Zim's PAK, and from the PAK into Zim's body. With a shriek of pain, Zim fell onto his side, his spider legs pulling back into the PAK.

A few minutes later, Zim shakily got up and walked over to the central console in a daze. He stopped when he noticed that the chair was gone, and looked mildly surprised to see it lodged in the main screen of the console. Then he remembered that he'd thrown it in there. With a sigh, Zim leaned against the console and slid to the floor. GIR, who had been watching the whole thing, walked over and sat down next to his master, leaning his head on his shoulder.

"…Are you alright?" the computer asked. Zim looked up at the ceiling, his normally bright red eyes now dull and seemingly lifeless.

"My whole life is a lie," he said, "I see that now. I always ignored the insults, and even the truth when it right in front of my face. Now I'm going to spend the rest of my life on this horrible excuse for a planet." Zim heaved another sigh, pulled himself to his feet, and headed towards one of the exits.

"Where you going?" GIR asked, cocking his head to the side.

"I need some fresh air," the exiled Irken muttered, before leaving the room.

XXXXXXX

Zim barely remembered to put his disguise on as he left the house. He walked down the street, not even caring where he was going. The sun was setting, casting long shadows that covered the cul-de-sac… and that fit Zim's current view on life just fine. 'Two years wasted on this planet,' Zim thought, 'Two years wasted preparing for an invasion that will never come. And just when I think that I'm finally going to conquer this planet, it turns out Tak and Sizz-Lor were right. I'm not an Invader, I'm a practical joke.' Zim stopped walking and leaned against a fence.

Looking down at his hands (which were starting to heal), Zim noticed his self-destruct button poking out of his sleeve. Zim pushed the sleeve back to fully expose the self-destruct. "It would be so simple," he said to himself, "I could just end it right now. All the pain, all the humiliation, I could end it right here." His finger hovered over the button, and he closed his eyes in anticipation.

'**Why give them the satisfaction?**'

Zim blinked in surprise and looked around, but didn't see anyone.

"Who said that?" he asked.

'**I did,**' the same voice said, seemingly coming out of nowhere. Zim's eyes narrowed as he got into a defensive stance.

"Whoever you are, you picked the wrong day to piss me off," Zim snarled, "So show yourself and tell me why you're here." The only response Zim got was a laugh that sent chills down his spine.

When the voice stopped laughing, it said, '**Oh, I've always been here, Zim. I've guided you since the day you were born. An idea whispered in your antennae here, a thought planted in your subconscious there- all to help you achieve your potential.**'

Zim's eyes widened as he suddenly recognized the voice - it was the same voice from his dream, the one that belonged to the eyes.

"You," he choked out, "You're that voice from my dream. I didn't think up the Devastators - you did!"

'**If it makes you feel any better,**' the voice said, '**you came up with the name. But yes, I planted the idea for those ships in your mind. My gift to you.**'

Zim, noticeably nervous, put his back against the fence, his eyes darting back and forth. "Where are you?" he asked.

'**Afraid I'm going to attack?**' the voice asked, it's tone implying it was smirking, '**Well, you can relax. I'm on Irk, far from you physically. However, I am connected to your PAK, and am now using it to transmit my messages directly into the audio centers of your brain.**'

Zim scratched his chin and said, "So, no one else can hear you? That's impressive- except it makes it look like I'm some lunatic talking to myself!"

'**Why do you think I've never communicated with you openly before? I deemed it too risky. But, given recent events, I decided it was necessary,**' the voice said, '**I anticipated you would become suicidal after the Tallest revealed the truth of your so-called mission. I couldn't let that happen.**'

Zim twitched in anger, but suppressed it and said, "Okay, as long as you're in the mood to answer questions… who are you?"

The voice let out a chuckle before replying, '**Call me Prime. As for who and what I am, that will have to wait. Sufficient to say that, like you, I am someone who has been betrayed by the Empire. Like you, I thirst for revenge against the Tallest and the Control Brains.**'

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Zim said, waving his arms, "Who said anything about revenge?"

'**Do not insult my intelligence,**' Prime snapped, '**I'm inside your head, Zim, I know your every thought and emotion. While you are depressed that you've been abandoned on this pitiful dirtball, you are also angry. Angry at the Tallest for lying to you; angry at the Empire for rewarding your loyalty like this; and you are angry at the Control Brains for labeling you a Defective.**'

"I AM _NOT _A DEFECTIVE!" Zim roared, throwing a punch at a dumpster so hard it skidded back a few inches, and the freshly healed wounds on Zim's hand reopened. Zim cursed in pain as he clutched his hand and Prime laughed in his head.

'**Hmm, struck a nerve, did I?**' he asked, '**I never cared for the term "Defective" myself, to be honest. To me, you're either of use to the Empire or not. And as far as I'm concerned, the current Tallest are not of any further use.**'

Zim frowned as he held his re-healing hand and was silent for a few moments. Finally, he asked, "What exactly are you proposing?"

'**I thought you'd say that,**' Prime said, his tone once again indicating he was smirking, '**Let me put this simply, Zim. You will soon have at your disposal a fleet of the most powerful warships ever created. Why not put them to use? Use them to eliminate the Tallest and help place me in command of the Empire, and you have my word, I shall place you high in my new order. Do we have a deal?**'

Zim thought about it for several minutes, before he said, "You make a good plan Prime, but there's just one thing." As he said this, the serious expression Zim had been wearing dissolved into an evil grin, "Why should I submit to you? With a fleet of Devastators at my command, all of Irk will be made to bow to Zim! What do you think of that?" When no response came, Zim let out a triumphant laugh - that quickly turned into a shriek as pain filled every corner of his body.

Zim squirmed in agony on the ground for several minutes before the pain subsided.

"Wha-What was that?" he wheezed, trying to breathe.

'**I stimulated your pain receptors,**' Prime stated coldly, '**which is just a taste of what is in store for you if you dare to betray me. Am I clear?**'

"Like Meekrobian crystal," Zim said, pulling himself to his feet.

'**Good,**' Prime said, '**Then get back to your base. You have work to do.**'

"Yes sir," Zim said, saluting his new, unseen master. He then quickly turned around and ran back towards his house.

XXXXXXX

GIR stood in the living room, watching the robo-parents try to "fix" the TV… by hitting it with giant hams. Suddenly, the door burst open. The three robots turned to see Zim standing in the doorway, his zipper-like teeth bared in a 'Cheshire Cat' smile. The overall creepiness of this image was increased when a flash of lightning appeared out of nowhere in the background, illuminating the exiled Irken.

"Hi Master!" GIR said happily, at the same time the robo-parents said, "Welcome home, son!" as they continued to beat the poor television with pork products.

"Um, are you feeling okay?" the computer asked - unlike GIR, it had a long enough attention span to remember that Zim had been very upset when he had left the house.

"Oh, I've never felt better," Zim said, shutting the door and removing his disguise, "What's the status of the Devastator fleet?"

"What?" the computer asked, taken off guard by the question, before it remembered and said, "Devastators 1 through 5 are complete, Devastators 6 and 7 are 45 percent complete, and Devastator 8 is 10 percent complete."

"What is the estimated time of completion for the whole fleet?" Zim asked.

"Approximately 46 hours, 27 minutes, and 53 seconds," the computer replied, "Give or take a few minutes for detailing."

Zim let out a chuckle as he pressed his fingers together. "Excellent," he hissed.

"Err, what exactly are you planning?" the computer asked.

Zim narrowed his crimson eyes and replied, "The Tallest laughed at me, they're probably still laughing at me. Well, let's see how easy it is for them to laugh when I shove an Armada of my own down their throats!" Zim began laughing, which turned into a cackle as he said, "Their time is at an end. Soon, the age of the Tallest will be over, and the age of Zim shall begin!"

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**A/N: Well, there's another chapter of plot development done. For those of you who want some action, don't worry. There'll be some next chapter.**

**Until then, read and review!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Good news to all my loyal readers. I've got a few weeks off from school (I'm in between semesters), so I'll have plenty of time to write. So, expect faster updates.**

**Anyway, this chapter we finally get some action, including the first of several fights between Zim and Dib. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Invader Zim and all related characters belong to Jhonen Vasquez. Prime and the Devastators belong to me.**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

Dib paced the living room of the Membrane household, chewing on a fingernail nervously.

"Will you knock it off, already?" Gaz snapped from the couch, where she sat with her GameSlave in hand, "You're bugging me again."

Dib paused and looked at his sister. "I can't help it, Gaz," he said, "Zim's planning something big. I can feel it."

Gaz rolled her eyes at her brother and went back to her game. "You're just ticked off that he glued you to the sidewalk the other day."

Dib twitched in anger at that memory- he'd spent over an hour chipping away at that adhesive before he'd managed to get his feet free. "That's not the point," he said, "Something strange is going on. And I mean more so than usual. First, Zim gets that weird transmission, and somehow hacks into my computer and manages to destroy it. Then he denies that he even _got_ a transmission, and now he hasn't shown up in Skool for the last two days!"

Gaz simply snorted as she killed something in her game. "Whatever that idiot's planning, it'll blow up in his face like his plans always do. Just watch. Now shut up, you're distracting me."

Dib sighed as he turned away from Gaz and stared out the window. Part of him hoped that Gaz was right, but his gut was telling him that there was something he wasn't seeing, and that by the time he did, it would be too late.

XXXXXXX

"Devastator fleet complete," the computer stated, "All ships forming up on the dark side of the moon, awaiting your orders."

Zim looked up from where he sat in his chair in the secondary command chamber (he hadn't bothered to fix the primary one). "Excellent," he said, "Prep the Voot and then upload yourself to the computer network onboard the _Vengeance_. We'll leave for Irk as soon as GIR gets back with his 'supplies.'"

'**Wait,**' Prime said in Zim's head, and the exiled Invader stiffened in attention at his new master's presence. '**A wise tactician makes sure his weapons work properly before going into battle. The Devastators need a test run,**' Prime paused and chuckled before adding, '**How fortunate we have a planet to practice on.**'

Zim smirked and replied, "Excellent idea."

"Who are you talking to?" the computer asked.

"Eh?" Zim asked, before remembering no one else could hear Prime. "Oh, uh, just thinking out loud. Change of plans - after you transfer to the _Vengeance,_ tell the Devastators to advance on Earth, attack pattern Theta-Seven."

"Yes Master," the computer said, as it carried out its orders.

"I'm going to enjoy this," Zim laughed. Then he looked at a security monitor and saw GIR enter the house with his idea of "supplies" - a mountain of tacos, rubber piggies, squeaky moose toys, and SuckMonkeys. Zim rolled his eyes and headed towards one of the lab exits, trying to figure out how he was going to convince GIR to leave all that junk behind.

XXXXXXX

Just outside the Moon's gravity field, on its far side, the fleet of three-dozen Devastators floated in a loose sphere formation, with Zim's crescent-shaped space station in the center. Built from scratch during Zim's early days on Earth, he had recently christened it the _Vengeance_ in light of his new goals in life.

Now, its hallways lit up as the A.I. that had operated Zim's base transferred into its computers and booted up all its dormant systems. Once satisfied that everything was running at peak efficiency, the computer opened up a communications channel with the Devastator fleet and relayed Zim's instructions.

As one, the engines on the automated warships flared to life, and they began maneuvering. As per attack pattern Theta-Seven, Devastators 20 and 9, being the closest, moved to directly flank the _Vengeance._ The rest headed towards Earth, where they would then split up and attack major population centers in every nation that was designated a major power.

"This should be good," the computer said, as it watched the thirty-four ships head towards the doomed blue-and-green planet.

XXXXXXX

A sound like booming thunder caught Dib's attention. "Hey, was there supposed to be a storm today?" he asked.

"Does it look like it, stupid?" Gaz snarled, pointing out the window at the cloudless sky. Dib walked over to the window - and when he looked out of it, his mouth fell open.

"Oh. My. God," he gasped out.

Two gigantic needle-shaped spaceships hovered over the city, their engines clearly being the source of the sound he had heard. Dib spun around and sprinted to the couch, where he grabbed the remote and turned on the television. Gaz growled, but for once in his life, Dib ignored her. He turned on the news, and found that they were already in the middle of a report on the ships.

"-strange objects have appeared in the sky over the city," the news anchor was saying, "And we've got reports of similar objects appearing over other major cities around the world." The anchor paused as he touched his earpiece, and then said, "Wait, we're receiving word that the ships are showing signs of activity. We'll switch over to our mobile unit, which is on the scene."

The view changed to that of a camera drone in the city center. It floated in a crowd of people, all of whom were looking up at one of the ships. As they watched, the point of the "needle" began to glow. Suddenly, a beam of energy shot out of the needle, heading straight towards the city center. The crowd started screaming and running, but then the beam hit, and the screen went to static.

Dib shut off the TV before the anchor could come back on. Pale and shaking, he turned to Gaz, who had actually opened an eye in shock.

"Still think Zim's not a threat?" he asked.

Gaz closed her eye and said, "So he's attacking the city. Who cares?"

"I do!" Dib snapped, "And I'm going to do something about it!"

Dib headed for the door, but paused, and then turned around and headed towards the stairs. "But first, I'm going to need some weapons."

Gaz watched him go, then shook her head and muttered, "Idiot."

XXXXXXX

Devastators 13 and 27 continued to pound the city. Laser shots set everything they touched aflame, missiles blew buildings apart, and projectiles from the rail guns reduced everything to dust. Every now and then, the warships also fired off their energy conductor cannons, blowing holes in the city.

Suddenly, a flight of F-22s flew in- the military didn't know what these things were, but they knew they were a threat. The 22s fired off every missile they had at the alien machines, but they exploded harmlessly against the Devastators' shields. The planes didn't have a chance to escape before a barrage of laser fire reduced them to atoms.

Zim laughed as he watched the whole thing on his television. "Do those fools really think these pitiful excuses for weapons can beat my creations?"

'_**Your**_** creations?**' Prime asked.

"Hey, I built the damn things," Zim snapped, only to receive a short jolt of pain in return, "Okay, okay. They're _your_ creations."

'**That's better,**' Prime said smugly. Zim frowned, but turned his attention back to the TV as he began surfing the news channels. Thanks to a little hacking in a few well-placed satellites, he had free access to every network on the planet. And right now, they were all covering the same story - the Devastator fleet attack occurring across the planet. In addition to this city, they were also targeting Los Angeles, New York and Washington in America; London, England; Paris, France; Rome, Italy; Athens, Greece; Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia; New Delhi, India; Islamabad, Pakistan; Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, China; Pyongyang, North Korea; and Tehran, Iran.

"Remind me again why we're concentrating on the Northern Hemisphere?" Zim asked, "Why spare the humans in the southern half of the planet?"

'**Because,**' Prime said, as if he were explaining it to a child, '**all the major human powers are in the Northern Hemisphere. They're the only ones who can provide a challenge for the Devastators.**'

"You call this a 'challenge'?" Zim snorted, pointing at the TV, which was currently showing the top of the Eiffel Tower being blown off by a blast from Devastator 5's energy conductor. "This isn't a challenge, Prime. This isn't even a fight - it's sport."

Before Prime could reply, GIR walked into the room in duty mode. "The Voot is loaded and prepped for flight, Master," he said with a salute, before his eyes turned back to blue, and he clapped his hands happily. "We're going on a road trip! We're going on a road trip!" he sang, running around in circles.

Zim rolled his eyes as he got to his feet. "Take your last look at this pathetic excuse for a base, GIR," he said, as he walked towards the kitchen, "It's lived its purpose, now it is no longer required."

"Aw," GIR said sadly, and then hugged the wall and shouted, "I'm gonna miss you, house!"

Zim rubbed his head, a migraine forming as Prime asked, '**Seriously, how have you put up with him for so long?**'

Before Zim could answer, the door burst open. Zim spun around just in time to catch a water balloon in the face. He shrieked in pain and clutched his face as Dib entered the house. He was wearing the battle suit he'd worn during that "test" he'd had to pass in order to get into his father's studio. The only difference was that it was equipped with the water balloon launcher he'd designed after he had first discovered Zim's weakness to water.

"It's over, Zim," he said coldly, "I'm stopping you once and for all."

Zim straightened himself and removed his hands from his face. His skin was still bubbling in some places, but after the amount of pain Prime had made him suffer the other day, this was nothing. "You really think a few toys can stop me?" he asked with a smirk.

Dib shrugged. "Pretty much," he said, right before firing off a salvo of balloons. Zim simply extended two of his spider legs and projected a force field. The balloons burst upon contact, and the water instantly evaporated. Quickly extending the remaining two legs, Zim used them as a springboard to launch himself at Dib. Before the boy could react, Zim's foot hit him square in the chest and sent him flying backwards to land right next to the TV.

Zim landed in a crouching position, the spider legs sprawled around him. GIR, for once realizing the seriousness of the situation, switched into duty mode and activated his weapon systems.

"Intruder!" he yelled, pointing several laser cannons at Dib. However, Zim held up a hand in front of his minion.

"No, GIR," he said, "I'll deal with this myself. Go wait in the Voot."

GIR's eyes turned back to blue and he retracted his weapons. "Okie-dokie!" he said, and ran off.

Zim turned his attention back to Dib, who was looking at the TV in horror, as it was currently showing Times Square being ripped apart by missile salvos from Devastators 22 and 36. Dib tore his gaze away from the screen to glare at Zim.

"Happy now that you've gotten your precious invasion?" he asked, practically spitting the words at his nemesis.

Zim simply laughed and coldly said, "Invasion? Don't flatter yourself, dirt-monkey. This isn't an invasion, it's _target practice_."

"What?!" Dib asked, his eyes going wide.

"I've got bigger plans now," Zim said with a sneer, "But before I can move on to them, I had to make sure the Devastators worked. So I decided to put your _pitiful_ excuse for a planet to good use."

Zim burst into maniacal laughter, which was interrupted when Dib began shaking with anger. "You," he snarled, "son of a BITCH!"

He then began firing rapidly at Zim, who rolled out of the way. Zim extended a spider leg and fired a blast of energy, which hit the water balloon launcher and blew it apart. Dib gave out a shriek of pain as shrapnel from the launcher cut him on the side of the face, and he fell to the floor.

"Just as pathetically _human_ as I thought," Zim laughed.

'**Heads up,**' Prime interjected, as Dib, in an adrenaline-fueled rage, picked up the TV and threw it at Zim. It hit him on the head and smashed into pieces, slicing up his face and shocking him.

As he clutched his face, Dib tackled him and they both rolled into the kitchen. Zim began stabbing at Dib with the spider legs in an attempt to get him off. However, Dib ignored the pain, grabbed Zim's neck, and started squeezing. Zim's face started to turn purple from lack of air. Acting quickly, Zim slammed his knee into Dib's chest, knocking the wind out of him, and stunning him enough that he let go of Zim's throat.

Zim slammed his fist into Dib's jaw, knocking him back, and then grabbed him by the collar and threw him across the room. He hit the trashcan so hard he broke through it and fell down the tube that led to the lab. Gasping for breath, Zim got to his feet and looked at the hole in the floor Dib had just fallen through.

'**Enjoying yourself?**' Prime asked.

"Yes, actually," Zim said, as the wounds on his face began to close up, "I've been looking forward to this for a long time."

'**Well, just make it quick,**' Prime said with a sigh, '**As the humans say, we have bigger fish to fry.**'

"Don't worry," Zim said, "This won't take long." He then ran forward and jumped into the trashcan headfirst.

XXXXXXX

Dib tumbled down the tube until he hit the bottom. The battle suit absorbed enough of the impact that nothing was broken, but it still hurt. And this was on top of the kick to the chest, the punch to the jaw, and the cut on his cheek from the exploding launcher. "This isn't going how I planned," he moaned, rubbing his sore head. Suddenly, he saw something shooting down the tube towards him. His eyes widened and he quickly rolled away in a panic.

Seconds later, the razor-sharp points of Zim's spider legs slammed into the ground where Dib had just been lying. Zim hit the ground right after the legs punched through the floor. He lifted his head to smirk at Dib, who was trying to pull himself to his feet.

"Poor, pathetic, human child," he said, slowly walking towards Dib, "I don't know what's more sad: You thinking you can defeat someone who's been trained to fight since the day he was born, or me for ever thinking you were a threat."

'**Stop gloating and kill him already!**' Prime yelled in his head, '**We don't have time for this!**'

"Don't tell me how to do my job!" Zim snapped, which brought a confused look to Dib's face.

"Who the Hell are you talking to?" he asked, as he reached behind the computer console he was leaning against…

"That's none of your concern," Zim growled, as he crouched in preparation for another jump, "And now, Dib-Worm, it's time to finish this!" Zim leapt at Dib, who jumped to the side - and yanked the console's power cable out. Zim's eyes widened in shock, but there was nothing he could do to stop himself. He hit the floor, and before he could move, Dib slammed the cable into his PAK. Zim screamed in pain as he was sent flying towards the other side of the room.

Dib pulled himself to his feet and limped towards Zim, who was crawling towards the far wall. "You lose, Zim," he said, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his alien sleep cuffs.

"Want… to… bet?" Zim wheezed, as a microphone extended from his PAK and placed itself in front of his mouth. Zim grinned and spoke into the mike, "Authorization code: Zim-Zero-Zero-One. Base self-destruct."

Red emergency lights started flashing as an alarm filled the corridors of the base. Dib looked around in shock as equipment and computer stations stared pulling into the walls, and the walls themselves started breaking apart and disappearing into the surrounding earth. He turned back to Zim - just in time to catch Zim's booted foot with his nose. He stumbled back and hit the floor, as Zim quickly ducked into an elevator shaft. "See you in Hell, Dib!" he shouted, as he was sucked up the shaft.

Dib got up and stumbled towards the shaft, but before he reached it, it sealed shut and was pulled into the ceiling. Heart pounding with terror, Dib slowly turned around and watched as the base continued to collapse and disintegrate. To make matters worse, the packed dirt walls surrounding the base - held back for two years - were starting to cave in. Looking at the impending doom around him, Dib said the only thing he could in such a situation.

"Oh, shit."

XXXXXXX

Up on the surface, if anyone wasn't too busy watching the Devastators attacking the city, or hiding in their basements, they would have noticed the strange green house at the end of the cul-de-sac shaking. The metal cables attaching it to the surrounding houses detached and were sucked into the house. It's huge satellite dish was also sucked back in, and the robotic lawn gnomes disappeared back into the ground from which they had originally been spawned.

Soon, the house itself broke apart and collapsed into the ground, leaving only a gaping hole, above which floated the Voot cruiser, with Zim clinging to its side via the spider legs. Zim grinned evilly as he watched the hole in the ground collapse in on itself. A few moments afterwards, the capsule that had originally formed his base shot out of the ground and into his outstretched hand.

Zim pocketed the capsule, and then placed the microphone back up against his mouth. "Zim to all Devastators," he ordered, "Fall back to the _Vengeance._ Repeat, fall back." All over the world, the Devastators ceased firing on their target cities and started heading towards orbit.

Zim jumped into the Voot, where GIR immediately jumped onto his shoulder. "Enjoy this reprieve while it lasts, humans," Zim said to himself, "For once I've achieved my revenge, I'll be back to finish the job. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" The Voot fired its thrusters and headed after the Devastators, Zim's laugh echoing through the air.

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**A/N: Wow. This is the longest chapter I've ever written for anything. Also, this is the first time I've ever written an action sequence, and I'm pretty proud with myself.**

**Don't worry about Dib, he's not dead. I've got big plans for him. You'll find out what happened to him next chapter.**

**Until then, read and review!**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: New chapter, ladies and gentlemen. I'm glad you all enjoyed the action last chapter, but I'm afraid we're back to plot development now. But don't worry - there'll be plenty of action very soon. Read on!**

**Disclaimer: I have a patent pending on Prime and the Devastators. Everything else is copyrighted to Jhonen Vasquez.**

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Several hours after the Devastators had left, the city continued to burn. The smoke from the numerous fires rose miles into the air, forming into a single, gigantic column. The prevailing winds blew the smoke column out over the cul-de-sac where Zim's house had previously stood. Unlike the panic occurring in the city, the cul-de-sac was deathly silent and still. Suddenly, there was movement as the manhole lid in the middle of the cul-de-sac started to move. A hand, bearing a metal glove and covered in grime, weakly pushed the lid out of the way. A second one joined it, and together, they pushed against the sides of the manhole and pulled up… Dib!

How did Dib get there, you ask? Well, it seems that at some point, an expansion of Zim's base had burst through part of a sewer tunnel and weakened the structure as a whole. When the base had disintegrated, the unnatural caverns formed by the base had caved-in, and all that sudden added weight had caused the weakened sewer tunnel to collapse, taking Dib with it. He had then been knocked out, and carried away from the collapsing earth by the current of the sewer water. When he'd come to, he'd pulled himself out of the sewage and crawled out of the sewer.

Now, Dib crawled away from the manhole and flipped onto his back, exhausted. A huge black-and-blue bruise covered his jaw, and he assumed that a similar one was on his chest, considering how it ached. His nose wasn't broken from the kick it had taken, but it was sore and bleeding. He was also bleeding slightly from the cut he'd received on his cheek, and the multiple cuts on his back and sides from where Zim's spider legs had managed to slip past the battle suit. He was also pretty sure he'd gotten a concussion from the fall, but he didn't think it was dangerous. He'd have to get it examined.

With his self-evaluation out of the way, Dib pulled himself to his feet and looked around through cracked glasses. From the look of things, the Devastators had ignored the suburbs and only hit the city proper. Not that that made him feel any better. He'd been preparing for his final confrontation with Zim for two years, and now he had failed. And the worst part was that Zim's mocking words continued to ring in his head.

'_I don't know what's more sad: You thinking you can defeat someone who's been trained to fight since the day he was born, or me for ever thinking you were a threat.'_

'_This isn't an invasion. It's __**target practice**__.'_

'_I have bigger plans now.'_

At that last one, Dib frowned. "What bigger plans?" he asked, for once not caring that he was talking to himself. "Taking over Earth is all he's cared about since he got here. What else is there for him?" Dib paused as another thought came to him. "And who the Hell was he talking to towards the end of the fight?" Dib scratched his chin in thought- and flinched when that sent a jolt of pain through his body.

"Okay, first thing's first," he muttered, "Got to get home and have one of Dad's medical bots look me over." With that, he limped out of the cul-de-sac and headed towards his house.

XXXXXXX

Zim sat in his command chair on the bridge of the _Vengeance._ His view of the stars was slightly obscured by his fleet of Devastators, as they floated in space, providing a protective screen while awaiting their master's next orders. However, Zim didn't seem to be in the mood to give orders. He simply sat hunched over in his chair, fingers pressed against each other, watching the Devastators through the viewport, while GIR sat on the floor playing with a squeaky moose toy.

"Master, are you feeling alright?" the computer asked, unnerved by the fact that Zim hadn't said anything for the past several hours.

"Oh, I'm fine," Zim replied, not moving, "It's just… I feel cheated. After two years of the Dib-monkey ruining my plans, I thought our final battle would be epic." Zim snorted, and then added, "But I had greater challenges when I was a smeet. That was just pitiful." Zim straightened himself up and said, "Oh well, I'll have to find a suitable opponent somewhere else. In the meantime, we have work to do elsewhere. Computer, locate the exact position of the _Massive _and the rest of the Armada. I think it's time we paid the Tallest a visit."

'**Wait!**' Prime commanded, and Zim rolled his eyes.

"What is it this time?" he muttered under his breath, so that the computer wouldn't hear him.

'**If my years of military experience have taught me anything, it's this,**' Prime stated, '**while the element of surprise is a helpful tool, an even better one is being able to fight on your own terms.**'

Zim blinked and scratched his head. "Eh?" he asked.

Prime sighed and elaborated, '**If you attack the Armada right now, while you'll have surprise on your side, as well as technological superiority, the Tallest will still have the option of retreating. However, if you assault Irk, the Armada will have to come fight you, and there'll be no place for the Tallest to run.**'

"What about the rest of the planets in the Empire?" Zim asked, to which Prime chuckled.

'**They wouldn't dare fall back to a conquered world and leave the home world occupied,**' he said, '**that would be a sign of weakness. The Empire's enemies would fall upon them like vultures on a carcass. They'll have to fight you at Irk… and they will lose.**'

Zim didn't say anything for a moment as he considered this. To be honest, he didn't care about Irk or the Empire - he just wanted revenge on Red and Purple for fooling him. But Prime would not take "no" for an answer, and Zim was not eager to relive the pain Prime was capable of bestowing on him.

"Irken Armada located," the computer said, pulling Zim from his thoughts. He looked up at one of the computer screens, which was currently showing a map of the galaxy. A red blinking dot indicated where the Armada currently was.

'**Excellent,**' Prime said, '**they're in the Iban system. That's over a hundred light-years from Irk. We should have total dominance of Irk space by the time they get back.**'

Zim said nothing as he continued to look at the screen. Finally, he made up his mind.

"Computer, warm up the hyperspace drives on all the ships and plot a course for Irk. We take Irk, we take the Empire." Orders given, Zim laid back down in his chair as the dark-matter generators in the core of the ship activated. The stars outside the viewport seemed to stretch as space around the Devastator fleet was pulled open, and then the fleet disappeared in a flash of light.

XXXXXXX

Dib rubbed a towel over his body, careful to avoid the number of bandages he now bore. After having one of his father's medical robots patch him up and assure him that there were no life-threatening injuries, he'd grabbed a quick shower to wash away the filth from the sewer.

Now, he quickly got into a clean (and identical) set of clothes, and ran downstairs to the living room, where Gaz was right where he'd left her several hours earlier. "I had him, Gaz," he said as soon as he entered the room, "I had him, and then he got away."

Gaz cracked open an eye to glance at her brother before saying, "Looks more like he beat the crap out of you and then just left."

Dib glared at his sister, and was about to snap at her when there was a knock at the door. Curious, Dib walked over and opened it, only to find no one there. Dib raised an eyebrow in surprise, but simply shrugged and was about to close the door when he happened to glance down. There was a plain white envelope marked with the insignia of the Swollen Eyeball Network sitting on the doorstep. Eyes widening, Dib grabbed the envelope and quickly closed the door. "I'll be in my room," he said quickly to Gaz, and then ran upstairs.

Once in his room, Dib opened up the envelope and pulled out a DVD. He placed the DVD in his laptop and watched as the shadowy image of Agent Darkbooty appeared on the screen. "_Greetings, Agent Mothman,_" the head of the SEN said, "_First off, on behalf of the entire Network, I apologize for not believing your claims about the alien known as Zim. Perhaps if we had listened to you sooner, this disaster could have been avoided._" Darkbooty shook his head and continued, "_But now is not the time for hindsight. As the only person who really understands this alien, we thought we should send you this information._"

The image of Darkbooty disappeared, replaced by a computer image of Earth and the Moon. A group of red dots appeared, moving up from Earth towards a smaller dot on the far side of the Moon, as Darkbooty's voice narrated, "_One of our private satellites tracked the alien ships to just beyond the Moon, where they joined with another ship. A short time later, the whole fleet simply… vanished._" The red dots grouped around the one near the Moon, and then blinked out of sight. Darkbooty's image reappeared on the screen. He said, "_I am hereby ordering you, Agent Mothman, to find out where this alien menace has gone, and make sure it is eliminated. Good luck._" The screen went black as the message ended.

Dib merely sat there, staring at the blank screen. "How the Hell am I supposed to 'eliminate' Zim?" he asked, once again talking to himself, "I don't even know where he went!" Dib placed his hands behind his back and leaned into them, deep in thought. Suddenly, he shot up with as a thought hit him. "That's it!" he shouted, jumping up. He grabbed the laptop and ran out the door.

He stopped when he reached the garage door and panted. Swallowing the nervous lump in his throat, Dib entered the garage and slowly walked towards the metal shape in the corner of the garage… Tak's ship. As he reached it, he extended a hand towards the cockpit, but stopped short as he reconsidered this course of action. After the copy of his mind had been erased from the ship, the ship's original A.I. - the copy of Tak's mind - had reestablished itself. Since then, Dib had barely gone near the ship - he wasn't suicidal, after all.

Now, however, Dib needed Irken expertise, and this was his only option. He reached into the cockpit and hit the activation button. The cockpit lit up as the ship's systems were brought online.

"All systems up and run-" the ship started to say, only to stop when it realized whom it was talking to. "Oh it's _you_. What do you want, human?" it asked, as the pods on its side separated and extended into claws.

Dib gulped and backed away, before saying, "I need your help."

The ship lowered its claws in surprise, and then burst out laughing. "Why would I possibly help you, Dib? I _despise_ you."

Dib smirked at that and replied, "Because helping me this time means hurting Zim. Maybe even killing him."

The ship paused, and then retracted its claws.

"I'm listening," it said.

So, Dib quickly filled the A.I. in on everything that had happened, and finished by playing the DVD. The ship was silent for a few moments, before saying, "Zim couldn't possibly have come up with these ships - these 'Devastators', as you call them - by himself. He's not that bright."

Dib, who was now sitting on a box, blinked in surprise and asked, "Well, if he didn't make them, then who did?"

The ship extended a tentacle and tapped it against the floor in thought. Finally, it said, "You mentioned a transmission you intercepted going to Zim's base, correct? Perhaps whoever sent it is working with Zim, and sent him the blueprints for the Devastators."

Dib scratched his head in thought as he considered this. It wouldn't be the first time Zim had gotten outside help… Prisoner 777 came to mind. Another thought hit him, and he said, "Zim said he had 'bigger plans' than conquering Earth. Any idea what he meant?"

The ship's side-pods moved up then down in an equivalent of a shrug. "With this lunatic? Who knows," it said, "But it must be something big, considering the firepower he's packing."

Dib crossed his arms and lowered his head in thought. He was silent for a few minutes, before he looked up at the ship and asked, "Think you can track where he went?"

"It might be a little difficult, but it's possible," the ship replied, before asking, "You really planning on going after him alone?"

Dib's expression turned serious as he said, "I failed to stop Zim from attacking Earth, and killing so many people. I can't… I _won't_ let him do it again somewhere else."

The ship let out a chuckle as it said, "That's very noble, Dib. Extremely _stupid,_ but noble. Fine, I'll help you, but on one condition - when this is all over, hopefully with Zim dead, you let me leave this planet so that I can find my proper owner."

Dib thought it over, and then finally said, "Deal. So, when can we leave?"

"Go get whatever supplies you'll need, human," the ship said, "I should be able to estimate Zim's destination based on the trajectory his fleet was on when they jumped to hyperspace. Give me an hour, two at the most."

Dib nodded, and ran towards the door leading into the house. 'I'm coming, Zim,' he said in his head, 'and this time, I'm going to stop you, permanently.'

XXXXXXX

Far from Earth, Irken Captain Floof sat calmly in the cockpit of his Shuvver, floating in orbit over Irk. Outside his viewport, he could see the other ships of the Home Defense Fleet that he commanded: Several other Shuvvers and Rippers, plus a couple of Ring Cutters. Not a very impressive force, not when compared to the main Armada, but it was really just for show. No one would dare to attack the throne world of the most powerful empire in the galaxy.

So imagine Floof's surprise when an alarm started blaring in the cockpit. He nearly fell out of his chair, before turning to his SIR unit, which was standing nearby. "What's going on?" he demanded.

The SIR saluted and said, "Master, a fleet of unknown ships has exited hyperspace seven-thousand kilometers out of Irk orbit, 70 degrees starboard."

"What?!" Floof screamed. He grabbed the controls of his Shuvver and turned his ship 70 degrees starboard. When he did, his jaw went slack. For appearing in flashes of light were three-dozen ships… very impressive-looking ships. "What the…?" was all Floof managed to say before the ships opened fire. Then, all he could do was scream as a flurry of laser bolts and rail gun projectiles ripped his ship apart.

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**A/N: And I'll end that right there. Perfect buildup for the next chapter, don't you think? I'll try to have that up within the next couple of days.**

**Until then, Merry Christmas, and please read and review!**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Okay, first of all, there's something I want to clear up right now, in order to avoid any confusion later on. Since Tak herself will not be appearing in this story, I will be referring to the A.I. copy of her personality in her ship as 'Tak.' This is mostly so that I don't have to constantly refer to the talking ship as 'the ship' or 'the A.I.' Just wanted to clear that up.**

**Disclaimer: Prime, the Devastators, and any characters not shown in the actual series are mine. Everything else is property of Jhonen Vasquez.**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

The _Massive _floated in orbit over the planet Iban IV, home of the jellyfish-like Esopeians. It had recently been conquered by Invader Krunk, and was now in the process of being cleansed by the Armada. On the bridge, Red and Purple floated by the viewport, watching the planet burn beneath them.

"So," Red said, "I was thinking we turn this one into a shopping mall."

"That's stupid," Purple said, "I say we turn it into another food court planet. Then we won't have to wait in such long lines at Foodcourtia."

Red gave his co-ruler a weird look. "We're the Tallest, Pur," he said, "We don't have to wait in lines."

Purple blinked, then said, "Oh yeah."

Red was about to smack Purple upside the head when one of the bridge technicians spoke up. "My Tallest!" he said, "We have a Priority One message from Second Tallest Arnor!"

The two Tallest looked at each other in surprise- Arnor was on Irk. What could have happened to cause a Priority One situation? "Put him on," Red said.

The main holo-screen flickered to life, showing the image of the main chamber of Tallest Tower, and standing in the center of the room was Sort-of-Mighty Second Tallest Arnor. Clad in green armor that matched his eyes, he stood only an inch and a half shorter than Red and Purple, and was normally a perfect picture of calm. However, his normally stoic expression was currently gone. There was fear in his eyes, and beads of sweat were running down his face.

"Um, Arnor, are you alright?" Red asked, cocking his antennae in confusion.

"I've been better, sir," Arnor said, "I'm sorry to interrupt you while you're cleansing a new conquest, but we have a situation that desperately requires your attention."

Before he could continue, another form burst into the room. It was quickly revealed to be Gor, the violet-eyed, energetic, Pretty-Mighty Third Tallest. As soon as he saw the Tallest on the holo-screen he shouted, "Oh thank the Gods, you've reached them! They're going to send the whole Armada to help, right? Right?!"

"What the heck are you talking about?" Purple asked.

Gor looked at the screen in confusion, and then turned to Arnor and said, "You haven't _told them yet?!_"

Arnor flinched, before snapping, "I was about to when you busted in! And aren't you supposed to be monitoring the situation?"

"I _was_," Gor said, "Which is why we need the flippin' Armada! We're getting our butts whooped!"

Red stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply, catching the other two Irkens' attention. "Now that I have your attention," he said, "Would one of you please tell us what the Hell you're talking about?"

Arnor and Gor looked at each other, before they cleared their throats and Arnor said, "Irk's being attacked."

"WHAT?!" Red and Purple shouted simultaneously, as everyone else on the bridge looked on wide-eyed. "Who is it?" Red asked, fear and anger mixing in his voice, "The Resisty? The Planet Jackers? The Meekrob? Who?!"

Arnor simply shrugged and said, "We don't know. We've never seen ships like these before."

"What about the Home Defense Fleet?" Purple asked, "Why isn't Floof doing his job?"

"Captain Floof is dead, and the HDF has been defeated," Arnor said softly, causing a stunned silence to fill the bridge. The silence was broken when Gor shouted, "'Defeated'? That implies there was a fight. This wasn't a fight - it was a massacre! They wiped the Fleet out!"

"That's… that's impossible," was all Purple could choke out, while Red merely shook with anger.

"You wanna tell them that?" Gor asked, "Because right now the only protection we've got are our planet-side defenses, and those aren't putting a dent in these things!"

Red held up a hand, gaining everyone's attention.

"Send word to every ship in the Armada," he said coldly, "Set a direct course for Irk. We will engage this enemy who has dared to attack our home-world, and we will destroy them!"

This got a roaring cheer from the bridge crew, during which Purple - who wanted to add to this big moment - shouted, "Yeah! What he said!"

XXXXXXX

Zim stood on the bridge of the _Vengeance_, looking out at the debris field that was all that remained of the Home Defense Fleet. Every now and then, a body would float by, its lifeless eyes staring at him through the viewport. At first, he had felt guilt over killing his own kind, but he had simply reminded himself that these were the same people who mocked and humiliated him his whole life. They had this coming.

The Devastators had performed even better than he had hoped. They had wiped out the HDF with only minimal damage - their shields were twice as strong as anything the defending Irkens had been expecting to ever fight, so the HDF's weapons had barely scratched them. Now, Devastators 8 and 29 provided a protective screen for the _Vengeance_, guarding it against blasts from the energy cannons on the surface that were attempting to knock the invading fleet out of the sky.

Meanwhile, the remaining Devastators bombarded Irk from orbit, targeting Capital City and other major population centers. At the rate things were going, he figured that he'd have control of the planet long before the Tallest arrived with the Armada.

"Master," the computer said, interrupting his train of thought, "We're receiving a message from the surface."

Zim grinned. "So," he said, "I suppose the Control Brains and the Second Tallest are calling to tell me they're surrendering, hm?"

The computer was silent for a moment as it checked the message. "Actually," it said, "I'm not sure who it's from, but it's a text message, and it's addressed to you."

Zim blinked in surprise - he hadn't revealed himself to the defenders yet, so who could know it was him? Curious, he walked past GIR, who was humming the Doom Song while playing with his piggy toys, and walked over to a computer screen. Bringing up the message, he read it:

**ZIM, THE TALLEST HAVE SENT OUT A CALL-TO-ARMS. WE NEED TO MEET IN PERSON. COME TO THE FOLLOWING COORDINATES. –PRIME.**

Zim looked over the coordinates attached to the message, then did a double take and read them again. According to this, Prime wanted Zim to meet him at the Great Crater outside of Capital City- but there was nothing there. The entire area was desolate.

Once again, the computer interrupted Zim's thoughts as it asked, "Master, who is this 'Prime'?"

Zim turned to the ceiling as he answered. "Our new benefactor," he said, "He's been transmitting instructions to me through my PAK for some time now. Now it seems he wants to meet me face-to-face." Zim paused as he thought over his decision, then said, "Continue bombarding the surface, but cease firing around Capital City. I'm going down. GIR, you're coming with me."

"We gonna make biscuits?" GIR asked as he jumped up from the floor.

"No, GIR," Zim said, narrowing his eyes, "And I thought I told you never to say that again."

"Oh yeah," GIR said, as he followed his master towards the hanger containing the Voot.

XXXXXXX

Dib finished packing his supplies into the ship, which looked like it was ready to burst from everything that was stuffed inside.

"Sure you've got everything?" 'Tak' asked, "I'm pretty sure there's still a sink in the kitchen."

Dib, who was dusting off his hands, raised an eyebrow as he stared at the holographic display of Tak's head being projected in the cockpit. "When'd you develop a sense of humor?" he asked.

'Tak' snorted, "I have a sense of humor, human. It's just that none of your jokes are funny."

Dib rolled his eyes and said, "Well, I'm ready. Let's get going."

'Tak' was silent for a moment, before asking, "Aren't you going to say good-bye to your familial unit? I understand those types of relationships are important to your kind."

Dib sighed as he leaned against the wall of the garage. "I left a note," he said softly, "As for actually _saying_ good-bye… Dad's off trying to prove that aliens weren't behind the attack, since that's not 'REAL SCIENCE', and Gaz doesn't really give a damn. So I figured it would be easier to do things this way."

"Humans," 'Tak' said, the eyes on the holographic head rolling, "I'll never understand you people."

Before Dib could come up with a witty reply, an alarm sounded from the control panel in the cockpit. "What's that?" Dib asked.

"An emergency alert from the Almighty Tallest on every Irken frequency," 'Tak' replied in shock, "Irk's being attacked; they're calling on every available soldier to respond."

Human and A.I. alike were silent for a moment as they absorbed this shocking news, before Dib managed to find his voice.

"You don't think… could it be Zim?" he asked.

'Tak's holographic brow furrowed as she considered this. "It's possible," she said, "Though I find it hard to believe that even a Defective like Zim could be insane enough to attack the home-world. He'll bring the wrath of the whole Armada down upon himself."

Dib let out a dry laugh as he climbed into the cockpit. "Well, if you ask me," he said, "Zim's finally lost what little sanity he had to begin with. He was actually talking to himself during our last fight."

"That's… odd," 'Tak' said closing the cockpit and lifting up on the thrusters, "But I suppose after being stuck on a planet like this for so long, he was bound to go mad."

Ignoring the insult towards his planet, Dib leaned back in the cockpit chair as 'Tak' flew out the garage and headed towards the upper atmosphere. "So," he asked, "How long will it take to get to Irk?"

'Tak' ran a few quick calculations, and then answered, "It'll be about twenty minutes before we're far enough out of your planet's gravity field to enter hyperspace, after which it'll take a few hours."

Dib grabbed a pen and a note pad out of a bag next to the chair. "Just out of curiosity," he asked, "How exactly does this whole 'hyperspace' thing work?"

'Tak' laughed a little before smirking at Dib. "You just can't stop trying to understand Irken technology, can you?"

Dib merely shrugged and said, "I'm naturally inquisitive. So sue me."

'Tak' merely laughed again and said, "Well, I suppose it'll kill time.

"All Irken ships contain pods within them that are attached to their engines. These pods generate and contain dark matter. Once the hyperspace drives are activated, that dark matter is converted into dark energy, which is fired in a concentrated blast out of the ship, punching open a hole in reality that leads to hyperspace. You see, the universe as we know it exists only as a bubble in hyperspace. When the dark energy punches open the hole, that bubble is temporarily punctured, allowing the ship to slip into hyperspace. After they've traveled the relative amount of distance in hyperspace, the ship fires another blast of dark energy that opens another hole in the universe that allows the ship to slip back into reality at its intended destination."

"Wait a minute, hold up," Dib said, "There's no way you guys have managed to perfect this kind of technology."

'Tak' glared at Dib, clearly offended, before shrugging it off. "True," she said, "There is one small problem with the technology. The calculations for the trip have to be exact, otherwise you could end up inside a star or a gravity field."

"That's twice you've mentioned gravity fields," Dib said, "What's so important about them in this context?"

'Tak' gave Dib a look as though he was a moron, and then said, "The dark energy has to be released in zero-gravity, otherwise it's pulled back into the hyperspace drives and causes the engines to malfunction. The same thing would happen upon reentry. The excess dark energy would be pulled through the hole in reality into the ship, causing the same effect: the engines malfunction. Now, this would be bad enough in most places, but in a gravity field…"

"The ship would get pulled in and crash," Dib finished, having figured that part out mid-way through 'Tak's lecture.

"Precisely," 'Tak' said, before smirking and adding, "I guess you're not as stupid as I thought."

"Oh, shut up," Dib said, rolling his eyes. A beeping noise suddenly caught his attention. "What's that?" he asked.

"We've cleared the gravity field," 'Tak' replied, "I'm engaging the hyperspace drive- I suggest you hold on to something, this can be a bit jolting for first-timers."

Dib quickly strapped himself into his seat as a loud humming filled the cockpit. As he looked out the viewport, he gasped as the stars seemed to twist and stretch, before there was a flash of light.

XXXXXXX

Zim leaned against the side of the Voot, looking out over the Great Crater. In the distance, he could just barely make out the skyline of Capital City, which was illuminated by blasts of energy still being shot into space by the defense turrets, and by fires caused by the earlier Devastator attack. Zim felt a swelling of pride at knowing that it was _his _creations that caused this damage, enacting his revenge against those who had spurned him. However, this pride was counteracted by annoyance - he'd been here for an hour, and Prime had yet to show up.

A sound off to the side caught his attention, and he spun around, reaching for a concealed blaster in his sleeve, but stopped when he saw it was only GIR. The faulty SIR unit was grabbing rocks and other pieces of debris from the surrounding area, and was piling it up. "GIR," Zim sighed, "I know I'm going to regret asking this, but what are you doing?"

GIR's head turned around 180 degrees to face his master, and he stuck his little metal tongue out of the side of his mouth and happily shouted, "I'm building a snowman!"

Zim stared at his servant for a few moments, before he said, "GIR, in order to build a snowman, you need _snow_. Not rocks."

GIR shrugged and turned his head back around as he continued to pile the rocks on top of each other.

"Stupid robot," Zim muttered.

'**He's not stupid, he's advanced, remember?**' Prime snickered in Zim's mind.

Zim's eyes narrowed in anger, and he snapped, "Don't you get involved in this! And where are you? I've been waiting for an hour in this gods-forsaken place."

'**Then you can wait 30 more seconds,**' Prime said smugly, '**Oh, and you might want to move over a few feet.**'

Zim blinked in confusion, but before he could ask why, the ground started shaking. Zim gave a yelp and jumped back. The ground where he had just been standing collapsed as a pair of metallic arms burst through. This repeated in a few other spots, as several robot bugs climbed out of the ground. The ground they had climbed through soon collapsed, revealing a tunnel the robots had clearly dug.

"Oooo!" GIR said, forgetting about his 'snowman' and running over to the hole and the robots. "What's that? Who're they?" he asked.

Zim looked away from the tunnel and looked at the robots. They basically looked like giant metal cockroaches, stamped with the Imperial Irken symbol, with glowing red optics for eyes. Looking at them, Zim suddenly realized what they were.

"_Gladiator_-class servant droids?" he asked, "Don't tell me that's all you've got. They're antiques!"

Zim got the got distinct feeling Prime was shrugging during his reply. '**I've been out of circulation for a long time,**' he said nonchalantly, '**Now then, this tunnel leads to my bunker. The **_**Gladiators**_** will lead you to me. Quickly, we haven't much time.**'

"As you command," Zim said. Snapping his fingers, he shouted, "GIR! Come!"

GIR turned from poking one of the _Gladiators_ with a stick he just happened to have with him, and skipped over to the Voot. He jumped in just as Zim closed the cockpit. Zim turned his ship towards the tunnel entrance and flew down it after the _Gladiators_, who scuttled in down the walls.

XXXXXXX

Prime watched his holo-screen as it split the image between Zim's view - transmitted through his PAK - and that of the _Gladiators_. "Come to daddy," he laughed. He then switched the holo-screen over to the hacked feed from the _Massive_'s bridge. It showed the Tallest floating in the middle of the bridge, shouting out orders to the crew as they neared Irk.

"That's right, fools, come to me," Prime snarled, "Come, so that you may burn, along with the rest of this weak, pathetic excuse of a civilization you've allowed the Empire to become. You will all burn, and then, like the mythical phoenix, I will rise from the ashes, and forge a new Empire. An Empire that will sweep aside all other life in this and every other galaxy. The Irkens will reign supreme over the cosmos, and I will reign supreme over the Irkens.

"All will hail and show praise to Prime, Emperor of the Universe!"

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**A/N: So, what do you think? I hope I didn't cause any headaches with that B.S. "lecture" on hyperspace midway through the chapter- but pay attention to it. It'll be an important reference point later on.**

**Happy New Year, and please read and review!**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Welcome to the next chapter of 'Reckoning,' where Zim finally meets the one pulling his strings. For those of you wondering why Prime sent Zim a text message last chapter instead of "talking" to him, it's simple really. At this point, Prime no longer sees a point in hiding, least of all from his minion's minions.**

**Oh, and a good chunk of this chapter is Prime telling Zim a condensed version of 'The Puppet Master'. So, just skip over that bit, if you want.**

**With that out of the way, on with the chapter!**

**Disclaimer: The Devastators, Gladiators, and all non-canon characters belong to me. Everything else is Jhonen's.**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

Zim flew the Voot after the Gladiators, following them through a series of twisting tunnels filled with rubble. As he did so, he made sure to try and memorize the route, in case he needed to make a quick escape- he still didn't trust Prime entirely. That kind of blind faith had betrayed him before, and he was not going to let that happen again.

Finally, the Gladiators stopped as they reached a chamber. At the end of the chamber opposite the entrance, there was a grand pair of metal doors, marked with the symbol of the Irken Empire. Assuming this was the entrance to Prime's personal chambers, Zim parked the Voot and got out. He walked over to the doors and waited for them to open.

And waited.

And waited.

"Are you going to open up or not?!" Zim yelled. His patience was virtually non-existent to begin with, now even that was running out.

'**I would if I could,**' Prime said, '**But these doors haven't functioned since the attack that did all this to my bunker.**'

Zim crossed his arms and snarled at the being he knew was on the other side of the doors, "Then how do you propose that I get in?"

Prime didn't respond, but one of the Gladiators scuttled forward. Its back opened up, and a particle cannon popped out. After a few seconds of charging, it fired a blast of energy at the doors, blowing open an entrance. As the smoke cleared, Zim stepped forward and through the entrance.

Unlike the rest of the ruined bunker, which still had some dim lighting, this chamber was nearly pitch-black, lit only by the light coming through the hole that had just been blown in the doors. Just as Zim's eyes were adjusting to the darkness, several bright lights flashed on, nearly blinding him. "Etchuta!" he cursed, rubbing at his eyes as he tried to get the spots to disappear from his sight.

"Hello, Zim," Prime's deep, cultured voice echoed off the walls of the chamber, "How nice to finally see you with my own eyes."

Zim removed his hands from his eyes, ready to shout at Prime… and his mouth fell open in shock. Sitting in the middle of the chamber was a Control Brain, but not like any he had ever seen before.

It was easily twice the size of the Brains on Devastis and Judgementia. Also, unlike those Brains, this one only had two eyes, set in the center of its front side. Actually, now that Zim looked at it, he could see that it was designed to look like an actual brain. "What's wrong?" it asked, sounding amused, "You look as if you've seen a ghost."

Zim could only stare in shock, before choking out, "You-You're a… Control Brain?!"

Prime let out a long laugh, waving several tentacles in the air. "Observant, aren't you?" he sneered, "Yes, I am a Control Brain. The Primary Control Brain, to be precise. Hence my name."

"Ooooooo!" GIR said as he entered the room. He ran over to Prime and latched onto him. "Hi, Mister Brain!" he shouted.

Prime's eyes narrowed, and he grabbed GIR with a metal tendril. "Don't touch me," he said coldly. He then flicked the tendril, sending GIR flying across the room, where he crashed into one of the Gladiators. The bug-like sentry looked annoyed as it pulled itself up, while GIR merely giggled.

"I don't understand," Zim said quietly, more to himself than to Prime, "Why would a Control Brain be in this gods-forsaken place? And why would you help me fight the Empire?"

Prime merely chuckled, and extended a tentacle. Before Zim could move, Prime grabbed him and pulled him closer, so that they were looking at each other eye-to-eye. "Do you really want to know?" he asked. Zim, too scared to speak, merely nodded.

"Well, since you asked so nicely," Prime chuckled, "I suppose I can spare a few moments to explain." Prime then made a noise like clearing his throat, and then said, "3000 standard years ago, Tallest Genek had me created in this bunker by the Scientists' Council. I was designed to be the ultimate thinking machine, one capable of maintaining and running a galactic empire. They succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, and it was through my superior intellect that most of the early advancement of the Irken Empire was performed. But did I get any credit for my hard work? No! The Irken populace praised Tallest Rankor for 'his' conquests. Bah! That fool did _nothing_ for the glory of the Empire. He was almost as useless as the current Tallest are!

"Finally, I decided that for the good of Irk and the Empire, I had to seize control directly, rather than taking orders from the Tallest. However, there was one problem that I didn't count on: the other Control Brains that had been created in my image refused to join me in my coup. They felt direct rule was against our programming. So, they informed Rankor, who brought the Armada back to Irk to try and subdue me. I was safe from their attacks down here, so Rankor sacrificed himself to stop me. He crashed his personnel ship into the surface above my bunker, causing the explosion that created the Great Crater and destroyed my bunker. I survived, just barely, but everyone else thought I was dead.

"I allowed them to stay under that impression, while I hid here, preparing for my revenge. I hacked into the PAK production plant and found a faulty unit through which I could manipulate the attached Irken. That would be you, Zim. By planting ideas in your mind I have been able to strike many blows against the Empire, and now the time has come for the endgame. With my mind, and your body and skills to enact my will, this Empire shall fall, and a new one made in my image shall be born."

Zim hung limply from Prime's tentacle, absorbing all of this information. He opened his mouth several times, but apparently had lost his incredible powers of speech. Finally, he managed to find his voice and said, "So, what you're saying is, that for my whole life, you've been controlling me?"

Prime chuckled as he lowered Zim to the ground and gently patted him on the head, like one would do with a pet. "That's somewhat true," he admitted, "But even I can't completely eliminate your free will. You've always made your own decisions, Zim, all I've ever done is… make suggestions."

"So, what are you 'suggesting' now?" Zim asked, estimating his odds of escaping this room alive.

Prime's optics narrowed as he said, "I would suggest, now that you know the truth about what I am, that you pledge your loyalty to me. In return, once I am returned to my rightful place as ruler of the Irken Empire, I will find a suitable position for you in the re-structured hierarchy."

"Re-structured?" Zim asked, his curiosity overriding his fear of what Prime could do to him.

Prime chuckled a bit. "Of course, re-structured," he said, as though it was obvious, "The current system, which bases rank on height, is utterly ridiculous. I can name plenty of shorter Irkens- including you- who could do a better job of running Irk than the Tallest."

Zim's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "That's… that's sacrilegious!" he shouted, "We've used this system for millennia! You can't just throw it away! You-"

Zim's rant was cut off when Prime slammed one of his tentacles into the ex-Invader, knocking him to the floor. Optics glowing with rage, Prime wrapped another tentacle around Zim and picked him up.

"Why are you defending a system that has brought so much suffering to you personally?! I've watched over you your whole life, Zim. I know all the pain and humiliation you've been put through because of your height. But in my new order, that won't matter. Status will be based not on height, but on skill and intellect. You have plenty of useful skills, Zim, and… reasonably high intelligence. There will be a place for you in my Empire that there will never be in this one." Prime lowered Zim to the ground, and retracted his tentacles. "So tell me, Zim," he asked, "Will you serve the new Empire, or will I have to dispose of you with the old?"

Zim didn't say anything, but through his link to the PAK, Prime could feel Zim's conflicting feelings. Despite everything that the Tallest had done to him, the ideals of the Empire had been branded into him since birth. To reject those ideals in favor of what Prime was proposing was difficult, to say the least. But finally, Zim came to a conclusion, and Prime knew what it was even before the ruby-eyed Irken said anything. Zim lowered himself to one knee, and bowed his head. "I will serve you, Prime. Your every command I shall carry out. However, I _will_ expect compensation."

Prime let out another laugh as he responded, "But of course… General."

Zim's antennae perked up at that. 'General Zim,' he thought, 'That has a rather nice ring to it.'

Suddenly, an alarm went off. Prime and Zim turned their attention to the holo-screen, which was currently showing a computer image of Irk and its moons. A group of purple dots representing the Devastator fleet were in orbit of Irk, while a larger group of red dots had appeared several thousand kilometers away, out of Irk's gravity well. "It seems the Armada has arrived," Prime mused, "I believe it is time to mobilize our troops, General."

Zim nodded. "As you command, my lord," he said, as he extended the microphone from his PAK. "This is Zi-" he started to say, before he paused, then grinned and said, "This is _General_ Zim to all Devastators. Cease bombardment of the planet and engage the Armada. Attack pattern Delta-Five."

On the holo-screen, the dots representing the Devastators moved away from Irk, and started moving towards the dots representing the Armada.

XXXXXXX

Red and Purple gazed out the main viewport of the _Massive's_ bridge, looking out at the fleet of warships that had dared to attack their homeworld. Neither had seen anything quite like them before, but they didn't care what they were. All they cared about was destroying them.

"My Tallest," one of the technicians spoke up, "The enemy fleet is breaking away from Irk."

The Tallest turned away from the viewport to look at the technician. "Good," Red said smugly, "Clearly they've realized how foolish it was to attack us. Tell the Armada to pursue."

The technician's antennae twitched nervously before he said, "Um, I can't do that, sir."

Red glared at the technician, before leaning down so that they were eye-to-eye. "And why, pray tell, is that?" he asked.

The technician scuttled back in his chair, trying to get out of range of his master's wrath. "Be-Because they're heading right towards us."

"WHAT?!" Both Tallest shouted. They both turned back to the viewport to see that, indeed, the enemy fleet was heading straight towards them.

"Are they crazy or something?" Purple asked, "We outnumber them ten-to-one."

"I don't care if they're crazy or not. Kill them!" Red snapped the last part at the technician, who quickly relayed the orders to the rest of the Armada. Several ships moved forward, but before they could do anything, the enemy made the first move. Half of them opened fire with their primary cannons, while the other half let loose with salvos of laser blasts, missiles and rail gun projectiles.

The energy beams hit the ships that had moved forward, and after only a few seconds, they punched through the shields and blew the ships apart. The salvos then started hitting the other ships in the Armada, causing them to scatter to avoid being hit. Purple and Red shared a look as their supposedly invincible fleet started to fall apart around them.

"This could be a problem," Purple said.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**A/N: Okay, I know this might be a bad place to stop this chapter, but I have a bit of writer's block right now. So I did what I could.**

**Next chapter will contain both action AND plot development. Of course, it might be a while before I get it up, but we'll see what happens.**

'**Til then, read and review!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Sorry it's taking so long with these updates, but you all know how writer's block is. Anyway, this chapter will see some more of the battle between the Armada and the Devastators. Also, some more plot development as Dib and 'Tak' become involved, and Zim and Prime reveal themselves. Read on!**

**Disclaimer: All non-canon characters are mine. Everything else belongs to Jhonen Vasquez.**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

Dib slammed against the viewport of the modified Spittle Runner as it exited hyperspace.

"Mind your head," 'Tak' said with a smirk, "Re-entry to real space can be a little jolting."

Dib pulled himself off the viewport with a groan and rubbed his sore head. "Thanks for the advice," he said sarcastically, "So, I take it we're there?"

"Look for yourself," 'Tak' said grimly, gesturing out the viewport with her holographic head. Dib looked out the viewport, and the sight before him took his breath away. In the distance, two red stars cast their glow throughout the solar system. Reflecting the light from the stars was a planet that was several times larger than Earth, with three moons in varying orbits around it.

However, Dib barely noticed these details. He was a little distracted by the _HUGE _space battle going on- the Devastators were fighting what had to be the entire Irken Armada. At first glance, Dib would have bet on the Armada due to the larger number of ships. However, it soon became clear that Zim's forces had the technological advantage. Attacks from the Armada battleships bounced harmlessly off the Devastators' shields, and the few attacks that did manage to slip through only caused cosmetic damage. Meanwhile, the Devastators were tearing the Armada apart. Lasers, missiles, rail gun projectiles, and the occasional energy beam flew every which way, scattering the Armada and destroying everything they touched.

"Okay, this looks bad," Dib said.

"Gee, ya think?" 'Tak' asked, glaring at Dib, "We need to go see the Tallest. If you're really serious about taking on Zim, you're going to need the Armada's help."

Dib glanced out the viewport at the mostly one-sided battle they had stumbled into.

"Yeah, they'll be a big help," he deadpanned. Before 'Tak' could snap at him again, he held up a hand to cut her off and said, "Just tell me which ship these Tallest guys are on."

'Tak' glared at Dib some more, then said, "They'll be onboard their flagship, the _Massive_. It's the big one."

"Which big on-" Dib started to ask, but stopped when he saw the planetoid-sized ship trading energy blasts with a couple of Devastators. "Oh. _That_ big one."

'Tak' rolled her holographic eyes as she flew the Spittle Runner towards one of the _Massive's_ hanger bays. The modified ship touched down on the hanger's floor, and Dib quickly opened the cockpit and jumped out, relieved to get out of the cramped space.

However, that relief quickly turned to panic as several dozen Irkens, some on foot and some with jetpacks, rushed into the hanger and pointed their weapons at Dib. The young human paled as he slowly raised his arms to show he was unarmed.

"Little help?" he muttered out of the side of his mouth at 'Tak'.

"Oh, I think I've done my part for now," the personality simulation snickered, "Good luck." And with that, the hologram of Tak's head disappeared, leaving Dib on his own.

"Bitch," Dib muttered under his breath, before turning his attention back to the Irkens and saying the only thing that came to mind.

"Um… I come in peace?"

XXXXXXX

The Tallest looked on as the enemy fleet continued to destroy their mighty Armada. Even as they watched, a blast of energy from one of the ships' main cannons hit a Viral Tank and blew it apart. Red growled and turned his attention to the holo-screen, which currently showed Arnor and Gor, who were now in the Control Brain bunker underneath Tallest Tower. "Any suggestions?" the scarlet-eyed Tallest asked.

One of the Control Brains, the unofficial leader of the ones on Irk, moved forward from its set position on the wall and said, "Our analysis of the situation shows little-to-no chance of defeating this fleet through standard battle tactics. Desperate measures are called for."

"Such as?" Purple asked, also turning from the viewport to the holo-screen. Another Control Brain spoke up, saying, "Utilize the _Massive's_ Cleansing cannons." Arnor sputtered, drawing attention to himself. When he composed himself, he said, "Do you have any idea how powerful those things are? They won't just destroy the enemy, they'll take out half the Armada as well!"

"Second Tallest Arnor," the lead Brain said with a serious tone that left no room for argument, "If a proper course of action is not taken, there soon may not _be_ an Armada."

Before anyone else could say anything, a member of the Elite Guard ran into the bridge and up to the Tallest. "My Tallest!" he said, as he stopped to pant for breath, "We've just captured an alien boarding the ship. He claims to have information about the enemy fleet."

The Tallest exchanged looks before Red turned to the Guardsman and said, "Bring him in."

The Guardsman nodded and muttered some instructions into his communicator. Seconds later, the doors to the bridge slid open… and a figure was sent flying through the air to land at the Tallest's feet with an, "Ow!" The figure, which could now be seen to be Dib, rubbed his head as he got to his feet. "I could have _walked_, you know," he muttered as he dusted himself off. But then he stopped as he realized who else was in the room. "Oh… hello."

"Hey," Purple said, recognizing Dib, "You're that human who called us alien scum!"

Dib smiled sheepishly and pulled on his shirt collar as every Irken eye in the room turned to look at him. "Yeah, sorry about that," he said nervously, "But you might want to let that slide, 'cause-"

"Whoa!" Gor shouted from the holo-screen, interrupting Dib, "Your head is huge! Hey human, do all your people have such big heads?"

"My head's not big!" Dib snapped.

Red and Purple rolled their eyes, before the former cleared his throat and said, "Gor, you keep quiet. Now then, human, tell us what you know, and we'll throw you out the airlock."

Dib blinked as he looked up at the Tallest. "Don't you mean 'or' you'll throw me out the airlock?"

"No, he means 'and'," Purple said with a shrug, "We're still going to do it anyway, but this way we get information first."

Before Dib could come up with a good reply to that, one of the technicians shouted out, "My Tallest! The enemy has ceased activity!"

The Tallest, Dib, and everyone else on the bridge turned to look out the viewport, while Arnor, Gor, and the Control Brains turned their attention to something off screen- probably another one showing the battle.

The Devastators had stopped attacking the Armada, and were now pulling away. They moved until they were in orbit around one of the moons, where they quickly assembled into formation.

"Hey, what gives?" Purple asked.

As if in answer to his question, a signal sounded from one of the computer consoles. "Incoming transmission," one of the technicians said.

"Put it on," Red said absentmindedly, still trying to figure out what had just happened. The technician nodded and pushed some buttons on his console. A second holo-screen popped up… to reveal Zim's evilly grinning visage.

A gasp went up from everyone on the bridge, except for Dib, who had been expecting this.

"Zim?!" Red shouted, looking like he was about to have the Irken equivalent of a heart attack.

"Hello, my Tallest," Zim sneered, loading as much hate into the greeting as he could, "Surprised to see me again?"

"Well, yeah," Purple said, still looking shocked, "We were pretty sure you'd kill yourself or something after we exiled you to Earth."

Zim's eyes narrowed to slits and he clenched his fists so hard his palms started to bleed. "So sorry to disappoint you," he snarled, "But I decided my life was worth more than the opinion of a couple of snack-stuffing buffoons!"

All the Irkens on the bridge let out another gasp- no one insulted the Almighty Tallest and lived to tell about it. Red and Purple stared at Zim in shock, which quickly turned to anger.

"How dare you?!" Red shouted, floating up until his face was practically pressed against the holo-screen, "You _dare_ to speak to the Almighty Tallest in such a disrespectful manner, you Defective?"

Zim hissed as he glared at Red. "'Defective' am I?" he asked, "Well, this 'Defective' just laid waste to your mighty Armada, oh Tall one."

The red-eyed Tallest blinked in surprise and turned to look at everyone bearing witness to this conversation. "What's he talking about?" Red asked no one in particular, hoping someone could give him an answer. He got one, but not from where he was expecting.

"He means those ships out there," Dib said, pointing out the viewport, "They're called Devastators. Zim built them- apparently so he could use them against you guys."

"What the - Dib!" Zim shouted, just now noticing his old enemy standing there, "That's impossible! I killed you!"

Dib crossed his arms and smirked at the image of his foe. "No," he said, "You ran away in the middle of our fight, and then collapsed your base on me. You didn't even check to see if I was dead. Your mistake."

Zim glared at Dib, hate filling his eyes. "A mistake I shall not repeat," he snarled, "When next we fight, I will not stop until I've ripped your disgusting human heart of your chest with my bare hands!"

"Enough!" the lead Control Brain shouted, "We care not for your feud with this human smeet, Zim. However, you have admitted to willingly committing an act of war against the Irken Empire. This is an act of treason, which is punishable by death."

Zim was silent for a few moments, his head bowed. Then, he started shaking, and then threw his head back as he let out a long laugh that chilled Dib and the Irkens to their bones, and caused even the Control Brains to feel fear. "Oh, this isn't treason," Zim said as he composed himself, "If anything, this is an example of my loyalty to the Empire."

"If you're so loyal to the Empire, then why in the six hells of Vort are you attacking it?" Arnor asked, cocking his antennae in confusion.

Zim simply laughed some more and then said, "Fool! I'm not attacking the Empire, I'm attacking the imbeciles running it." At this point, Zim glared at Red, Purple, Arnor, Gor, and the Control Brains simultaneously. "You think you have made the Empire mighty, but you've only made it a laughingstock. Irkens are meant to be warriors, and yet cowards who spend all their time relaxing and eating snacks are what lead us! Irkens are meant to be merciless, and yet you fools allow groups like the Resisty and Planet Jackers to exist within our territory! You are not worthy to lead the Empire, and it is time I replace you with someone who is!"

Red snorted as he placed his hands on his hips. "Oh? And who is this 'worthy' leader? You?"

"Not him," a new voice spoke up, "He means _me_."

Zim smirked as he moved to the side, giving those on the other end of the holo-screen a view of his surroundings. Dib and the Irkens got a quick view of a metal room with cracked walls and filled with half-destroyed machinery. However, their attention was quickly diverted to the gigantic Control Brain in the middle of the room, which seemed to grin sadistically at them even without a mouth.

"Hello, everyone," it said in a deep, cultured voice.

All the Irkens stared in shock and confusion, but this was interrupted when the Control Brains let out a shriek of alarm. "Impossible!" the lead one shouted, "You were destroyed centuries ago!"

The Control Brain on Zim's holo-screen laughed and waved a few tentacles in the air. "Precisely what I wanted you to think, brother," it said, "While I prepared for this moment."

Dib raised an eyebrow in confusion and turned to look at the Tallest. "What's going on?" he asked, "Who's big, metallic, and creepy?"

The Tallest, however, gave Dib looks that implied they were just as confused.

"If you wish to know, child, you need simply to ask," the Control Brain stated, "I am Prime, the Primary Control Brain, and rightful ruler of the Irken Empire."

"Wait, what?" Gor said, "Control Brains don't actually rule the Empire, they just make sure things run smoothly."

The Third Tallest turned his attention to the Control Brains above him. "Who is this guy, and what's he talking about?"

The Control Brains seemed to exchange glances, before the lead one spoke up, "Prime was the first Control Brain created by the old Scientists' Council, as Tallest Genek's last act before death. At first, he functioned perfectly. He was a good aide to Tallest Rankor-"

"I was never merely good! I was perfect!" Prime roared, "And I was no mere aide! I did all the hard work! I designed the winning strategies for every battle; I kept Irk and the Empire running smoothly; I did _everything,_ Rankor did_ nothing!_ He was even more of an idiot than Frick and Frack over here!" At that last comment, Prime gestured a tentacle at the Tallest.

"Hey!" Red and Purple shouted indignantly.

"Can I really be blamed for the actions I took?" Prime asked the Control Brains, completely ignoring the insulted Tallest, "I was the only one who could truly lead the Empire, and yet I was forced into a advisory position. There was only one course of action I could take, and I took it!"

"You usurped the throne!" one of the other Brains said, "An act of high treason! You gave us and Tallest Rankor no choice but to retaliate."

"I gave you a choice!" Prime snapped, "You could have joined me in leading this Empire into a Golden Age, but you spat my offer into my face! Instead you tried to destroy me." Prime paused and let out a low, dangerous chuckle, "But despite your and Rankor's efforts to the contrary, I survived. And I have spent the better part of the last millennium planning my revenge."

"And that's where I come in," Zim said, stepping back into view, "Lord Prime implanted a faulty PAK with a special program designed to allow access to the bearer's mind to him, and him alone. Then he just had to wait for it to be attached to a smeet." Zim smirked at the holo-screen, partially revealing his zipper-teeth to the viewers, "I always knew I was special, I just never knew _how_ special."

Prime laughed a little as he reached out with a tentacle and stroked Zim with it. "Since the day he was hatched from the birth-tube, I've guided his every action, whispering thoughts into his mind in order to take actions that I wanted him to."

"What actions?" one of the Brains asked, sounding distracted…

"What do you think?" Prime snorted, "After all, three planetary blackouts, the deaths of two Tallest, not to mention the disaster that was Operation Impending Doom - you didn't think Zim was really that incompetent, did you?" The assembled Irkens exchanged looks of shock as this realization hit them like a ton of bricks. "That's right," Prime laughed, "All those incidents you blamed on Zim were my doing. My revenge against the Empire that spurned me. And now, it is time to bring this to an end. The Devastators - designed by me, built by Zim - are the ultimate war machines. They are completely automated, programmed to only obey Zim… and he only obeys me now. Irk will be purged of all threats to me, and I will reign supreme!"

Any further ranting Prime and Zim might have done was cut off when an alarm sounded in their bunker.

"What the hell?!" Zim shouted, looking around in confusion.

"Your pride has made you careless, old friend," the lead Control Brain said smugly, "While you and your treacherous little servant have been bragging, we've been tracing your signal. We know exactly where you are, Prime - right where we left you, cowering in your little hole."

Prime's eyes glowed with fury as he slammed his tentacles against the walls, just barely missing Zim, and deactivating the holo-screen.

XXXXXXX

"We shall see who is cowering when this is done! General Zim, dispatch the Devastators! I want the Armada obliterated by daybreak!" Prime roared.

"With pleasure, my Lord," Zim said with a bow. He then activated his communicator and spoke into it, "This is General Zim to all Devastators - engage the Armada, attack pattern Omega. Do not cease fire until every last ship is destroyed!"

"And now the Day of Reckoning is at hand," Prime said, more to himself than to Zim, "It is time for my rule to begin anew, and this time, no one shall stand in my way! Mwa ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

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**A/N: Wow, this turned out a **_**lot**_** longer than I thought it would. I hope that makes it worth the wait.**

**Read and review!**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Okay, time for the next chapter. Now, this chapter is going to have plenty of action, as the Devastators engage the Armada in a winner-take-all battle, and the Irken army lays siege to Prime's bunker.**

**Other than that, I have nothing to say except: read on!**

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The darkness of space turned blindingly white as all thirty-six Devastators fired their main cannons simultaneously in a massive column of raw energy that punched its way through the Armada. The _Massive _just barely managed to get out the way in time, but the squadron of Shuvvers directly behind was not so lucky. They were reduced to atoms in a fraction of a second; their pilots didn't even have a chance to scream.

The rest of the Armada scattered once again, so as not to present such a large target to such a concentrated attack. However, this did not stop the Devastators from breaking formation and picking off the individual Irken ships one at a time.

On the bridge of the _Massive,_ the Tallest watched this development and immediately began issuing orders… well Red did, anyway. Purple began panicking and running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

"Tell all ships to fire at will," Red said to one of the bridge technicians, then turned to the Elite Guardsman from before and said, "Lieutenant, I'm authorizing you and the rest of the Elite Guard to commandeer whatever fighter craft we have lying around and engage the enemy as well." Red then turned his attention to Purple, who was still running around, screaming and flailing his arms in the air. "Pur, if you don't calm down and shut up, I'm going to rip your PAK out and bash you in the head with it!"

"'Calm down'?!" Purple shouted, as he stopped running and turned to face Red, "You want me to calm down?! In case you didn't notice, we're screwed! You saw the look on Zim's face - he wants us dead! And with those ships he can actually do it! What are we going to do?!"

"Can I make a suggestion?"

The Tallest turned to see Dib standing in the middle of the bridge, trying to stay out of everyone's way as they fought for their survival.

"Are you still here?" Red asked, before waving a hand dismissively and saying, "Beat it human, we're trying to fight a war."

"Yeah, I noticed," Dib said, "But here's a thought - why are you focusing on the Devastators, which you can't seem to beat, when you could be going after the guys pulling the strings?"

At the blank looks the Tallest gave him, Dib slapped himself in the head and snapped, "I mean Zim and Prime! Geez, how did you guys ever become leaders, anyway?"

"We're taller than everyone else," both Tallest said at the same time.

Dib simply rolled his eyes as he remembered that little detail of Irken society, and then said, "Look, we already know where they are, thanks to your friends here," he pointed to the holo-screen showing the Control Brains, "so why not just attack them. You know, 'cut off the head of the beast,' so to speak."

"Way ahead of you," Arnor said from his holo-screen, "We've dispatched a whole battalion to Prime's bunker. If Zim's smart, he'll self-destruct before we get our hands on him."

"Works for me," Dib said with a shrug, leaning against a console and putting his hands behind his head. "I was kind of hoping to get another chance at beating him myself, but-"

"Yeah right," Purple snorted, "I've only known you for a few minutes, human, but I can still tell you wouldn't stand a chance against a trained soldier - even one that's completely incompetent, like Zim."

Dib looked like he was about to snap something at the violet-eyed Tallest, but Red cut him off, "Look human, if you really want to help, try and figure out a way to stop the Devastators."

Dib looked out the viewport at the battle going on to see every shot fired by the Armada bounce harmlessly off the Devastators' shields.

"Huh… give me a minute with this one."

XXXXXXX

The ground shook as every military asset of the Irken Empire still on Irk itself marched from Capital City towards the Great Crater and Prime's bunker. Foot soldiers marched in formation alongside Plasma-armed Battle Tanks, MegaDoomers, and Maimbots, while a Frontline Battle Mech towered over them in the rear.

As the battalion reached the outskirts of the Crater, Commander Lurch, commanding officer of the battalion, sent an order from his command seat in the Mech for the battalion to halt. He then opened up a communications channel with Tallest Tower. "Sirs, we've reached the location of the traced signal," he said, saluting Arnor and Gor as they appeared on the holo-screen.

"Excellent work, Commander," Arnor said, "The Control Brains say that Prime's bunker is several hundred meters beneath the bottom of the Crater. Find a way in, and when you do… show no mercy."

"Yeah," Gor added, "And if Zim or Prime surrender, blow them up anyway!"

"By your command," Lurch said, snapping a fist to his chest and bowing. He then closed the holo-screen and activated his battalion's private communications channel. "All forces, move out," he ordered.

The battalion began moving forward… but they had only moved a few feet before several particle beams shot out of the valleys of rubble surrounding the Crater and hit the assembled military forces. The foot soldiers in the front lines were instantly incinerated, while the tanks and the other war machines were disabled.

"What the Hell just happened?!" Lurch demanded of his command crew, whose only answers were shocked expressions.

Lurch soon got his answer as the Gladiators leapt out from their hiding places amongst the rubble and fired another round at the battalion, which scattered to take cover, and then returned fire. However, much like the cockroaches they resembled, the Gladiators proved very hard to hit. They dove out of the way of the counter-fire; some dove back into the rubble, while others quickly burrowed underground.

Perched on a particularly large pile of rubble several miles away from the battle, Zim watched his soldiers go to war. Clad in battle armor, he looked every bit the General that Prime had appointed him.

"Oooooo!" GIR said happily from his spot next to his master, "Look at all the pretty colors!"

Zim glanced down at his SIR unit and then looked back at the battle. Via his optic implants, he had a very good view of every laser blast, every missile, and every explosion. He nodded his head in agreement. "For once you're right, GIR," he said, "There is nothing more beautiful than war."

'**I couldn't have said it better myself, General,**' Prime said through their mental link. Zim grinned and turned his attention back to the battle. The Gladiators were putting a large dent in the Irken battalion - the Irkens were trained for direct combat, while the Gladiators had been programmed for guerilla tactics.

Even as Zim watched, a Maimbot fell into a pit the Gladiators had dug just under the surface. Before the soldier manning it could pull it out, a nearby Gladiator stood up on its hind legs and popped open its chest compartment. A missile tube came out of the opening and fired at the downed Maimbot. A photon missile hit the cockpit head on and vaporized it, reducing the war machine to nothing more than a smoldering scrap heap.

However, that particular Gladiator was then hit by an energy beam that seemed to come out of thin air. The Gladiator was atomized almost instantly, and its remaining parts were reduced to melted slag.

"How…?" was all Zim could say as he stared in shock, but then realization hit him. "The MegaDoomers," he hissed.

'**Must be the new X-4 model**' Prime mused, strangely nonchalant, '**They finally found a way to fix that problem with the cloaking field. Now it actually covers the operator as well as the machine itself.**'

Zim muttered a few curses he'd picked up on Earth, but then he got an idea. "My Lord, Gladiators are equipped with magnetic cluster bombs, are they not?"

'**Yes, yes they are,**' Prime said after a moment. He then chuckled and said, '**You were born to be a General, Zim.**'

"Thank you," Zim said with a nod as he activated his communicator, "General Zim to all Gladiators, launch all MCBs. Repeat, launch all MCBs." As Zim put away the communicator, he paused as another thought came to him. As it did, he grinned and let out a laugh. "Oh, this is going to be fun!" he cackled.

XXXXXXX

Lurch watched in satisfaction as his cloaked MegaDoomers destroyed the walking antiques that Zim and Prime had sent against them. 'If that's the best these traitors can do, they won't last the hour,' he thought with a laugh. Suddenly, something happened on the battlefield that caught his attention.

The Gladiators all stood up and activated their missile tubes. However, instead of photon missiles, they all launched large black tubes into the air. All the Gladiators then dove into the ground and burrowed under it.

"What in the name of Tallest Miyuki?" Lurch asked - then he took a good look at the tubes, which were now starting to fall back to the ground. Lurch's eyes nearly popped out of his head as he suddenly realized what the tubes were. "No!"

As the tubes started to fall, they broke open, each one releasing dozens of fist-sized bombs. Once free from the tubes, they each activated a magnetic field that guided them towards the nearest metal construct… which in this case was the war machines of the battalion. They latched onto every Battle Tank, every Maimbot, and every cloaked MegaDoomer. Even the mighty Battle Mech was not spared, as some latched onto its legs. Almost immediately after latching on, the bombs detonated. Within minutes, every mechanized unit in the battalion was blown apart. The surviving foot soldiers ran for cover to hide from flying debris, and to get out of the way of the Battle Mech, which fell to the ground as its damaged legs gave out underneath its massive weight. At the last second, the crew was able to move the Mech's arms so that they landed on its hands, sparing them an actual crash.

Lurch staggered to his feet and clutched his head to stop the blood flowing out of a wound he'd received when he had hit his head on a console during the fall. "Report!" he ordered his crew, who were also pulling themselves to their feet.

"The servos in the Mech's legs are ruined," one of the crew members said, "Our weapons are damaged, but still functional. Which seems like a good thing, because it looks like the rest of the mechanized division has been wiped out."

Lurch looked out the viewport and cursed at what he saw.

Every war machine was a smoldering pile of wreckage, and the surviving Irkens of the battalion were scattered, injured, and were already once again under attack from the Gladiators.

"Direct all remaining power to the weapons," Lurch ordered, "I want those things obliterated!"

Before the crew could carry out their commander's orders, the wall of the cockpit exploded, sending the crew flying. By the time they picked themselves up, the smoke had cleared to show Zim standing in the hole, smirking at them. "Knock, knock," he said.

The crew could only stare in shock before Lurch shouted, "Get him!" The three crew members ran towards Zim, who only activated his spider legs. As the first one lunged at the Invader-turned-General with an electro-lance, Zim jumped into the air and landed behind him. Before the crew member could turn around, Zim fired a blast from one of his spider legs. It hit the soldier's PAK and blew it apart. The soldier's green eyes dulled as his higher brain functions shut down. His body started convulsing, and Zim grinned as he reached out and tapped him. The already-dying soldier fell out the hole in the cockpit and fell a few dozen feet to the ground, where he splattered like a piece of rotten fruit.

Zim turned away from the sight just in time to get slashed in the face by one of the other soldier's spider legs. He yelled in pain and rolled away from the second soldier just in time to avoid a laser blast from the third one. As they both charged towards him, Zim got into a crouch, and at just the right moment, swept out his leg. The second soldier's legs were knocked out from under her, knocking her to the ground. The third soldier jumped over her and launched himself at Zim- who whipped out his handheld blaster and shot it point-blank. The shot hit the soldier between his maroon eyes and incinerated his brain, one of the few injuries a PAK could not repair.

Zim slid out of the way of the corpse, which flew by him and slammed against the wall. The renegade General then turned back to the last crew member, who was starting to get back up, and slammed all four of his spider legs into her chest, piercing her heart and squeedly-spooch. The female made a gurgling noise as her mouth filled with her own blood, then her eyes rolled into her head as she died.

Zim retracted his spider legs, basking in the feeling of euphoria that washed over him as the adrenaline and endorphins produced by his body during the battle coursed through his system. His moment of bliss was interrupted by a clicking sound. He turned to find Lurch holding a plasma grenade in one hand and murder written on his face.

"Eat plasma, traitor!" he snarled as he lifted his hand behind his head to throw the grenade. Instead of panicking like most people would, Zim merely lifted one of his spider legs and fired a shot of his super adhesive. The adhesive hit Lurch's hand, fusing the live grenade to it. Lurch's eyes widened in pure fear as he tried to dislodge the explosive, but it wouldn't budge.

Zim leapt out the opening in the cockpit and slid down the side of the Mech as the plasma grenade exploded, vaporizing Lurch and everything else in the cockpit. Zim looked up at the flames coming from the ruined cockpit, and then turned his attention to the battlefield, where the remaining members of the battalion were being picked off by the Gladiators.

"This is too easy!" he laughed as he jumped into the fray to help his soldiers in the slaughter.

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**A/N: And there's another chapter done. I really enjoyed writing the part where Zim fought the crew of the Battle Mech. Oh, and there's a reference to the original "Battlestar Galactica" TV series in here. See if you can find it. I'll get right to work on the next chapter, where the battles continue.**

**Until then, read and review!**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: I would have started on this chapter sooner, but I took a day off to celebrate President Obama's historic inauguration. Add in the usual writer's block and whatnot, and that's the reason for any delay.**

**Anyway, this chapter contains a continuation of the battle between the forces of Prime and the Irkens. Read on!**

**Disclaimer: All non-canon characters and concepts belong to me. Everything else belongs to Jhonen Vasquez.**

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The _Massive_ shook as a salvo of Devastator projectiles hit its shields. The Armada flagship returned fire, but didn't seem to do any damage. Red cursed at the sight and turned to Dib, who was alternating between looking out the viewport and checking the ship's scanners.

"You actually going to do anything, human, or just stand there trying to look like you know what you're doing?" the scarlet-eyed Tallest asked, his anger and desperation over the situation dripping off his every word.

"Yeah, 'cause that's our job," Purple said, which earned him a smack on the head from Red. "Ow! What I say?"

Dib ignored the bickering Irkens and continued to study the information on the console before him. Suddenly, his eyes widened as he saw something. He quickly typed in some commands to double-check what he saw, and then called out to the Tallest, "Hey, Dumb and Dumber!" The Irken co-rulers turned to look at the young human, who added, "Come take a look at this."

The Tallest floated over to the console as Dib pulled up what he'd found with the scanners. "Look here," he said, pointing at a computer-generated image of a Devastator. A red bubble appeared around the Devastator, extending for several miles, according to the scale on the bottom of the screen. "That represents the Devastators' shields. As you can see, they're quite extensive."

"Tell us something we don't know," Red snapped.

"How about this?" Dib asked, typing a command into the console, "Look what happens when the Devastators fire their main cannons." On the screen, the simulated Devastator's cannon fired off a beam of blue light. As it did, the bubble representing the shield shrank until it was just barely beyond the warship's hull. It stayed there for several moments before it extended back to its original position.

"What just happened?" Purple asked, cocking his antennae in confusion.

"The shields loose power when they fire their main cannons," Red muttered, scratching his chin in thought.

"Precisely," Dib said, "From what I can figure, the Devastators use a central power source for all their systems. Their main cannons use so much energy that the power source has to reroute energy from every other system in order to power it. The shields are therefore running on only minimal levels for several minutes before the power source can restore full power to them. If you hit them during that period…"

"We can collapse their shields completely!" Red said, realizing where Dib was going with this, "Congratulations, human. I've decided not to kill you!"

"Um… thanks?"

Purple looked slightly depressed at this. "Aw, I wanted to watch his big head explode in space."

"For the millionth time, MY HEAD IS NOT BIG!" Dib shouted.

"Oh please, have you looked in the mirror lately?"

As Dib and Purple argued over the size of the former's head, Red floated back over to the main part of the bridge. "Next time the Devastator fires its main cannon, hit it with everything we've got," he said to one of the technicians. The technician nodded and powered up every functioning weapon system that the _Massive_ still had.

The ship was then maneuvered until it was directly in front of the Devastator it had been fighting. After a few seconds, its main cannon started to glow. Just as it fired, Red shouted, "Now!" and the pilots moved the _Massive_ out of the way. As the energy beam passed the space that the _Massive _had just been occupying, the Irken flagship opened fire on the Devastator. Countless purple energy bolts slammed against the Devastator's shield, which became visible as a golden glow covering the surface of the ship. Suddenly, the glow disappeared, and the energy bolts started hitting the Devastator itself. Explosions blossomed across the length of the warship, until a blast from the _Massive's_ own main cannons ripped right through the Devastator, emerging on the other side of it. This was followed by a blinding flash of light, as the Devastator exploded, sending flaming debris flying in every direction.

Those aboard the _Massive_ could only stare in shock as debris bounced off their shields, before the reality of what they'd just done kicked in, and they let out a roaring cheer.

"It worked!" Purple shouted happily, "It actually worked!"

Red turned to the communications officer and coldly said, "Ensign, spread the word to the rest of the Armada. Tell them how to bring those sons of bitches down."

The Ensign saluted and began relaying orders to the other ships fighting the Devastators.

Dib walked over to Red and cleared his throat. When Red turned to look at him, Dib said, "Seeing as you don't need my help anymore, I was hoping you'd let me leave to go deal with Zim."

Red shrugged as he waved a hand dismissively towards Dib. "Whatever you want, human," he said, "But I think you're wasting your time. I'm sure Commander Lurch's battalion has dealt with that traitor already."

XXXXXXX

The Irken soldier fell to the ground, clawing at the adhesive that had covered the lower half of his head, cutting off his air supply. Zim turned from the suffocating soldier towards the rest of his squadron, which had been trying to break and run from the fight, before he had cut it off. One of the remaining soldiers - a Corporal, according to his rank insignia - threw an electro-lance at the rebel General.

Zim sidestepped and then grabbed the lance as it went by, spinning it over his head before throwing it back at the squadron. The Corporal and two of the other Irkens jumped out of the way in time, but the third was not so lucky. The lance hit him square in the squeedly-spooch, tearing up that all-important organ, as well as sending several thousand volts of electricity through the poor soldier's body, killing him almost instantly.

The Corporal charged at Zim, fists swinging and spider legs slashing. Zim merely laughed and leapt into the air, landing on top of one of the mountains of rubble scattered throughout the area and disappearing from sight. The Corporal and the other two soldiers quickly scanned their surroundings, trying to catch sight of their opponent. Suddenly, a laser bolt hit the Corporal's PAK, disabling his spider legs and spinning him like a top.

Zim leapt from the shadows where he had been hiding and grabbed the Corporal by the throat.

"Pathetic weakling," he hissed, before quickly turning and using the Corporal as a living shield from the laser bolts being shot at him by the other two soldiers. The lasers shattered the Corporal's PAK and burned his body to a crisp. The soldiers stopped firing as soon as they realized what they were doing - at which point Zim tossed the corpse at them, distracting them long enough to run forward and spear them with his spider legs.

Zim chuckled as he pulled his blood-smeared spider legs out of the dying soldiers' bodies.

"This really is too easy," he said, sounding a little disappointed, "Give me a challenge! I am a soldier, I deserve a fight worthy of the word!"

'**Zim!**' Prime shouted in his head, making him wince in pain, '**Return to the bunker immediately!**'

"Why?"

'**The Armada has found a way to destroy the Devastators.**'

"WHAT?! HOW?!"

'**A flaw I did not foresee when I designed them. Their shields become nearly non-existent when they fire their primary cannons, and a few good hits from the Armada's weapons are able to cause the shields to collapse altogether,**' Prime paused and then let out a string of curses. '**They just took out another one! That makes five already. Return to the bunker at once; we need to strategize.**'

Growling, Zim activated his communicator. "This is General Zim to all Gladiators," he said, "Fall back to the bunker. Repeat, fall back to the bunker." Zim then deactivated his communicator and ran back towards the entrance to the tunnel that led to Prime's bunker. As he did, a thought hit him, and he did some cursing of his own. 'Dib-Worm,' he thought as a look of pure hate appeared on his face, 'I know you're behind this. You will _not_ make me a fool of me. Not this time.'

As he reached the tunnel entrance, Zim grabbed GIR (who had found a bag of tacos somewhere) by the antenna and dragged him off with him. Zim then leapt into the entrance, thinking of all the different ways he would torture Dib to death when he got his hands on him.

XXXXXXX

Dib walked into the hanger at a quick pace and headed towards his Spittle Runner. He hit the activation button, and 'Tak' appeared over the main console.

"You're not dead yet?" she asked, arching her holographic antennae in surprise.

"Sorry to disappoint you," Dib said dryly, as he climbed into the cockpit, "But seeing as I pretty much just helped them turn the tide against the Devastators, the Tallest decided to let me go."

"I detect a story here," 'Tak' said, giving Dib an inquisitive look. Dib merely shook his head wearily as he lowered the viewport.

"I'll fill you in on the way," he said, taking out a piece of paper on which he'd jotted down the directions that Red and Purple had quickly given him, "Do you know where the 'Great Crater' is?"

'Tak' snorted, "Of course I do, twit. Everyone on Irk knows about the Great Crater outside of Capital City. Why?"

"Like I said, I'll tell you on the way."

'Tak' glared at Dib, but merely sighed and lifted off from the hanger floor. But before they could go anywhere, there was a buzzing sound as the communication console activated. "Hey, human, you leave yet?" Purple's voice asked.

"No. Why?" Dib asked, after taking a moment to figure out which button activated the comm. system. There was an awkward silence before Purple said, "Well… you know the whole 'dealing with Zim' thing? Think you can handle that for us?"

Dib blinked in surprise before saying, "A few minutes ago, you said that your battalion could handle it, and that I wouldn't stand a chance."

"Yeah, well, that was before we got word from the surface that Zim just wiped out most of the battalion with a bunch of old war bots," Purple replied, "We're sending as much of the Elite Guard as we can spare to try and pick up the slack, but… well, we figured since you're so eager to fight him…"

"You might as well send me in," Dib finished for the Tallest, before sighing and saying with a bit of determination, "Fine. I was going to deal with Zim anyway, but I suppose I could use the backup. Tell your Elite Guard guys to meet me at the Crater."

"No problem," Purple said, sounding relieved, "We figure since Zim hates you so much, while he's killing you he'll be too distracted to fight the Guard, and they'll be able to get rid of him." Dib's jaw dropped as Purple chuckled and said, "Good luck!" before deactivating the communicator.

Dib merely stared at the console in shock for a few moments, and then he said, "This whole species is a bunch of jerks." 'Tak' merely laughed as she flew out of the hanger.

XXXXXXX

Zim paced angrily in the main chamber of the bunker, as Prime glared at the holo-screen. The Devastators had been ordered to stop using their primary cannons, but not before nearly a third of them had been destroyed. That had made enough of a difference that the Armada's superior numbers were starting to become a factor again. Even at full strength, the Devastators' shields could still be whittled down and disabled under enough concentrated fire, which the Armada could now provide.

"Well?" Zim asked, as he stopped pacing and looked up at Prime, "You're the brilliant tactician. What's your grand master plan's exit strategy? Or did you even bother to come up with one, you psychotic- AARRGGHH!"

Zim's angry rant was cut off when Prime triggered his pain receptors and a wave of pain hit him. He fell to his hands and knees as the pain ebbed, and Prime calmly stated, "Never question me, Zim."

Zim panted for breath, and finally wheezed out, "Forgive me, my Lord. But if you can't think of a way out of this, we're both dead. And I do not wish to die before those _fragging_ Tallest!"

Prime raised a tentacle as if to strike Zim, but paused, and after a few moments, lowered the tentacle. "Perhaps you are correct, General," he said softly, "Perhaps it would be best for us to perform a tactical retreat." Prime's optics glowed a darker shade of red as he narrowed them. "We will escape to some dark corner of the galaxy and rebuild. This time, we will not stop until we have built an army that will be double the size of the Armada. And not just Devastators and Gladiators- my genius will dream up even better weapons of destruction, and if necessary, we'll even ally ourselves with enemies of the Empire. We can always double-cross them later…"

Zim merely stared at Prime as he continued to ramble. Zim had begun to suspect, shortly after they had first met face-to-face, that Prime's centuries of isolation had rendered him slightly insane. Now, however, it seemed that watching his dreams of revenge and conquest go down in flames had driven him over the edge into total madness. Unfortunately, it was too late for Zim to turn back now. If he tried to break their alliance, he was certain Prime would kill him. And in any case, Prime was still his best chance for his own vengeance against the Tallest.

Bearing these thoughts in mind, Zim cleared his throat to gain his "master's" attention. Primes optics swiveled to look in Zim's direction. When they focused on him, he said, "That's all well and good, sir, but how are we to get you out of here? You're a tad to big to fit in my Voot Cruiser."

"Hmm, an excellent point, General," he mused, before chuckling and adding, "Well, it shouldn't be too hard to rig a teleportation pod to send us to the _Vengeance._ Deploy the Gladiators to guard the tunnels, and then start gathering materials for me. I suspect we'll have company before too long."

Zim bowed and quickly left the chamber, relieved to be out of Prime's sight. Right now, all he could do was try and stay on Prime's good side. At least, until he found a way out of this mess. 'There is a way for me to come out on top of this,' he thought, 'And I will find it. I will _not_ meet my end as the lowly servant to a deranged computer with a god-complex. For I am Zim!'

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**A/N: Just a quick announcement - we're in the home stretch now, people. Only a few more chapters left, and then this story is done. Strange really, I thought this would turn out longer than it has. Oh well. BTW, I stuck in an 'Independence Day' reference; see if you can find it.**

**In any case, next chapter Dib will lead the Elite Guard in a second (hopefully more successful) assault on Prime's bunker, while the villains prepare to make their escape. What'll happen? Well, you'll just have to wait and see.**

**Until then, read and review!**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Okay, just a quick announcement before we begin the action. By my estimate, there are only three chapters left of 'Reckoning'. That's counting this one, and excluding the epilogue. It's kind of depressing, to know this is almost over.**

**Anyway, nostalgia aside, this chapter contains a - sort of - more successful assault on Prime's bunker while he and Zim make plans to flee. Read on!**

**Disclaimer: All non-canon characters and concepts belong to me. Everything else belongs to Jhonen Vasquez.**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

As 'Tak' touched down on the ground just beyond the edge of the Great Crater, Dib finished bringing her up to speed. "So, since the Devastator fleet is being wiped out, all that's left to do is find Prime and Zim and deal with them."

"It never ceases to amaze me how you humans can over-simplify everything," 'Tak' said.

"What do you mean?"

'Tak' muttered something in Irken that Dib was fairly certain was derogatory, before she glared at him and said, "You think because you've defeated Prime's army, he's just going to roll over and surrender? If anything, he'll fight even harder than before, because he knows that if he loses, he's dead. And let's not forget that Zim's still involved, and he won't rest in peace until he's ripped you open from sternum to skull."

Dib tugged at his shirt collar as that particular mental image played out in his head. "Okay, so this is going to be a little harder than I thought. But I'm not giving up now."

"Like I said before - stupid, but noble," 'Tak' said with a shake of her holographic head, "But if you actually want to stand a chance, you're going to need this."

A panel slid open in the main compartment behind the cockpit and a suit of battle armor extended out on a robotic arm.

"What's that?" Dib asked, slightly awed.

"A standard-issue battle suit," 'Tak' said in a tone that implied it should have been obvious, "Equipped with its own atmospheric systems and inertial stabilizers."

"Huh?"

"Let me put it this way, human," 'Tak' said exasperatedly, "Irk's gravity is a little over twice that of Earth, but the stabilizers will make it so you can move around as if you were still on Earth. Also, the atmosphere on Irk contains high amounts of ammonia, to the point where it would most likely be toxic to your inferior human lungs."

"Can't go five minutes without insulting me, can you?" Dib asked as he started to put on the battle suit - despite being made of metal, it felt like some kind of fabric. As soon as he put it on, there was a slight hissing sound as the air between his body and the suit was pumped out, making it skintight.

"Now, push the small button on the collar," 'Tak' said, speaking slowly, as if to an infant. Dib frowned at the holographic head, but ignored her and pushed the button. A clear bubble formed over his head, and then shrank and contorted until it was so close against his head it looked like it had disappeared.

"Cool," was the only thing that Dib could say after such a scientific feat. After taking a moment to compose himself, he opened the cockpit, and stepped out onto Irken soil. Dib looked around at the area, taking in every detail. His observations were cut off as a shadow passed over him.

Dib looked up to see a Ring Cutter fly by, before stopping a few yards away and lowering to the ground. A ramp lowered from the ship's side, and several dozen members of the Elite Guard marched down it in perfect formation. What surprised Dib, however, was the fact that they were being led by Sort-Of-Mighty Second Tallest Arnor, who was clad in armor similar to Dib's and carrying what appeared to be a heavy assault rifle. "I didn't expect to see you here," the young human commented, as the tall Irken walked over to him.

Arnor smirked as he looked down at Dib. "What, did you think I was a lazy slug like the Tallest?" he asked. Before Dib could answer that rhetorical question, Arnor continued, "Red used to be a technician, and Purple was a food service drone. But _I_ was a soldier. I crave a good fight, and this is probably the only real chance I'll have for one with this job."

"Whatever you say," Dib muttered, then said, "So, where's the entrance to the bunker?"

Arnor touched a button on his wrist, and a holographic display popped up. "According to this, the main entrance was collapsed by Tallest Rankor's suicide run all those centuries ago. However, if we blast through here, we should be able to get into one of the outer tunnels and work our way towards Prime." Arnor deactivated the hologram and made a hand motion to one of the Guardsmen.

The Irken stepped forward and pulled out a metal tube. Placing it on the ground, he pressed a purple button on the top. With a hum, it started spinning and dug into the ground. The Guardsman then ran back towards the group. A few seconds later, there was a rumbling sound, and a large section of ground where the tunneling device went down exploded outwards.

As the dust cleared, Dib stared in surprise at the size of the hole that the small device had just made. "Pretty impressive, huh?" Arnor asked with a smirk, before poking Dib in the shoulder. "You first - you're the bait, remember?"

"How could I forget?" Dib asked dryly. Walking over to the hole, he peered over the edge… and was then roughly pushed in by one of the Irkens.

"You son of a-!" Dib shouted as he fell down the hole.

Arnor sniggered as he watched Dib fall down the hole, and then turned to the Irken responsible. "Good work, soldier."

XXXXXXX

Dib hit the ground of the tunnel with an "Oof!" The battle suit absorbed most of the impact, but it still hurt. Feeling sore all over, he pulled himself to his feet and looked up as Arnor and the Elite Guard climbed down the hole via their spider legs. "I am _really_ starting to hate you guys," Dib snapped.

Arnor simply snorted. "Like I care," he said, "Now get going." He pointed down the tunnel, and Dib, grumbling about alien jerks, started walking.

After about an hour or so of walking through dimly lit tunnels filled with rubble and debris, Dib entered a large chamber. Hearing what sounded like a scuttling sound, he paused and peered into the darkness. Suddenly, several blood-red lights appeared, and on pure instinct, Dib threw himself to the floor. This proved to be a smart move, as several particle beams flew through the air where he had just been standing. Judging by the screams and smells of burnt flesh that originated from behind him, some of the Irkens following him hadn't moved quite as fast.

Looking up, Dib saw several Gladiators run out of the shadows - and one of them lunged at him. Dib quickly rolled out of the way and jumped to his feet. The Gladiator's outstretched claw hit the ground where Dib had just been lying, smashing through the steel and concrete the floor was composed of as if it were paper.

Gulping, Dib turned and ran back into the tunnel. Jumping over the charred bodies of the dead Elite Guard members, he nearly bumped into Arnor, who growled and pushed Dib aside. "Fire at will!" Arnor shouted to the remaining members of the platoon as the Gladiators entered the tunnel. The robotic warriors opened fire with their particle beams and the Irkens returned fire with their handheld weapons and spider legs.

Dib took cover behind some rubble, cursing himself for not having a weapon. Just as that thought crossed his mind, an Elite Guard fell to the ground next to him, with most of his head blown away. Turning slightly green, Dib clasped his hand to his mouth and turned away… just in time to see one of the Gladiators jump onto the wall and scuttle past the Irkens and right towards him. Panicking, Dib realized he was backed into a corner. Then, he noticed the blaster still clutched in the dead Irken's hand.

Acting purely on fear and instinct, Dib grabbed the gun out of the Irken's hand, pointed it, and pulled the trigger. Just as the Gladiator jumped off the wall and towards Dib, a flurry of laser bolts shot from the blaster and hit it across its length. It fell to the floor, a smoking pile of scrap metal.

"Not bad, human!" Arnor shouted, as he smashed a Gladiator's head in with the butt of his rifle and blasted another one with his spider legs. Dib, being in a slight state of shock, didn't say anything, but just targeted another Gladiator. Just as it was about to fire off a photon missile, Dib sent a laser bolt straight down its missile tube. The Gladiator exploded in a flash of light.

After a few minutes, most of the Gladiators were destroyed, and the last couple turned and fled back into the chamber. Pausing to catch his breath and compose himself, Dib leaned against some rubble and looked around. About a third of the Elite Guard platoon was dead, and plenty of the others were wounded, but their PAKs were handling that.

Arnor walked over to Dib with a smirk on his face as he said, "You know, for an inferior species, you fight pretty well."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," Dib muttered, still shaking a little from the adrenaline that had been produced in his body during the fight.

Arnor simply chuckled and gave his soldiers a hand signal. The survivors marched forward, apparently not caring that they were walking over the corpses of their comrades. When Dib commented on this, Arnor merely shook his head at him. "These Irkens have been trained from birth to be methodical killing machines, with loyalty only to the Tallest, and to not care about anyone or anything else, not even each other. That's just the way our society works."

Before the conversation could go any further, one of the Guards shouted from the chamber, "Sir! I think you should come and take a look at this."

Arnor and Dib ran into the chamber… and joined the Elite Guard members in staring in confusion. Now that the Irkens had managed to set up some emergency lights, they could see that Gladiators were literally swarming in and out of the chamber. However, they were completely ignoring Dib and the Irkens, instead ripping machinery out of the walls and carrying it out through a hole in the doors at the end of the chamber.

"What are they doing?" Dib asked.

"I'm not sure," Arnor said, narrowing his eyes, "But I don't think we should let them finish."

He pointed his assault rifle at the nearest Gladiator and sent forth a stream of plasma. The Gladiator was reduced to a pile of slag, as were several others as the Irkens and Dib started picking them off.

Suddenly, several canisters were shot out of the hole in the doors. As they hit the ground, they released thick, billowy smoke that obscured the attackers' vision. "Smoke bombs!" one of the Elite Guard shouted - right before something lunged out of the smoke in front of them and tackled him into the smokescreen that was also forming behind them.

"Lieutenant!" Arnor shouted. He got a response several moments later, when the Lieutenant's body came flying back out of the smoke… followed shortly thereafter by his head. Panicked, the Guard opened fire at the spot from whence the decapitated corpse had come. After several moments, they ceased fire.

And that was when several blasts of energy shot from the_ other_ side of the smoke-filled chamber, killing several of the Guards. The remaining soldiers fought back, but the _status quo_ was quickly established: they would fire randomly into the smoke, only for their invisible foe to either hit them from another position, or snatch one of them into the smoke and slaughter them. Within minutes, the entire platoon was reduced to Arnor, Dib, and four Elite Guards.

By this point, the smoke had begun to clear, and it soon dispersed enough to reveal their antagonist. Zim stood before them, his body and spider legs drenched in green Irken blood. His cold red eyes locked onto those who stood before him, and an evil smirk formed on his face. "Well, well, well," he chuckled, "Look what we have here: the stink-beast and the Second Tallest. This must be my lucky day."

"The only significance this day has for you is that it'll be your last, traitor," Arnor snarled, before opening fire with his rifle. Zim leapt out of the way and returned fire with his blaster, only for it to be shot out of his hand. He turned his attention to Dib, who was pointing his blaster at Zim and wearing a smirk of his own. Zim glared, but was then hit in the shoulder by a laser blast from one of the remaining Guards.

Hissing in pain as the battle armor on his shoulder started to melt and burn his flesh, Zim leapt into the air and clung to the ceiling. As everyone started firing at him, he started skittering around the ceiling, returning fire with the spider legs he wasn't using to stay on the ceiling.

"ENOUGH!" a voice suddenly shouted, as several metal tentacles shot out of the hole in the doors. They impaled the Elite Guards and then tossed the corpses away, before two of them quickly wrapped around Dib and Arnor, and pulled them into the inner chamber. Zim watched all this and grinned.

'This should be good,' he thought.

XXXXXXX

Dib and Arnor were thrown to the ground as the tentacles retracted into Prime, who glared down at them with a mad hatred in his eyes. Before either of them could say or do anything, Prime lashed out another tendril and once again grabbed Arnor, pulling him up so they were eye-to-eye.

"Hey! Put him down!" Dib shouted. He started to move forward, but was stopped when a hand clasped onto his shoulder.

He turned around to find Zim standing behind him. The Irken grabbed Dib's throat with his other hand and slammed him against the wall. He then extended his spider legs and fired off some of his super adhesive, pinning the human to the wall.

"Don't go anywhere," he said with a laugh, patting Dib on the cheek. He then backed away and turned his attention to Prime, who was staring intently at Arnor.

"Something wrong?" Arnor asked sarcastically, as he struggled to try and free himself.

Prime merely continued to stare at the Second Tallest, before he finally muttered, "Those eyes."

Arnor blinked. "What?"

Prime stared at Arnor's green eyes, but then his optics narrowed, and his other tentacles started shaking in fury. "Those eyes," he said again, but now with pure rage dripping off his every word, "They're the same as Rankor's eyes. Yes, I see now why you truly came. You look like the one who defeated me, so you thought that would distract me enough that you could finish the job! Well, nice try, but you cannot fool my superior intellect! You will not defeat me, even if you do look like that _shoo-sen!_ Do you hear me?!"

Arnor merely stared at the clearly insane Control Brain, while on the floor Dib and Zim were doing the same thing. After a few moments of silence, Arnor cleared his throat and said, "You know, from the moment I first heard about you and your plans, I figured you were crazy. But now I can see clearly - you're a total lunatic."

Prime's optics glowed with anger, and one of them actually twitched. "A lunatic?" he asked, "A _lunatic?!_ I am _not_ a lunatic! I am a genius! I am a visionary! And now, I… am… ANGRY!!!" Prime latched another tentacle onto Arnor's PAK, and with an animalistic roar, he ripped it out of Arnor's back and smashed it against the wall, shattering it to pieces. Arnor's eyes widened in pain and fear as his life-clock suddenly appeared on his arm. Uttering a noise that was some sort of cross between a giddy laugh and a mad cackle, Prime flexed his tentacle and sent the doomed Irken flying out the hole in the chamber's doors. He then turned his crazed gaze to Zim and Dib, and narrowed his eyes.

"What are you looking at? Get back to work!"

Zim bowed. "Y-Yes, my Lord," he stammered, shocked by what he had just witnessed- killing an Irken by removing his PAK was considered taboo. It was a slow, painful death, one that Zim wouldn't wish on anyone, not even the Tallest. Especially since he had almost experienced it himself…

Shaking his mind free of such thoughts, Zim turned his attention back to what he had been doing before the assault on the bunker had begun. In the center of the room, the Voot Cruiser was hooked up to a mish-mash of machinery, assembled from the components and pieces that he had the Gladiators gather from the rest of the complex. Putting on some goggles, he activated the "tool" function of his spider legs, and used them to finish fusing the device together.

"What is that thing?" Dib asked, as he continued to try and break free of the adhesive. Zim looked up from his work for a moment, and then went back to it.

"Well, since you're going to be dead in a few moments, I don't suppose there's any harm in telling you," Zim said, patting the side of the machine. "This, Dib-Human, is a makeshift teleportation device. Combined with a modification of the hyperspace drive on the Voot, it will be able to teleport myself and Prime to the _Vengeance_, so that we may escape and plot our revenge elsewhere."

Dib snorted. "So, you're running away with your tail between your legs, huh? Never took you as a coward, Zim."

Zim twitched in anger, but before he could retort, a light on the top of the machine flashed green. "Excellent," Prime said, sounding slightly happier than he should have, "The device is online. General, activate it, so that we may make our escape."

Zim stood up from the device and dusted himself off. "It'll take a few minutes for the device to power up and activate, sir," he said, and then turned his attention to Dib, "which should just give me enough time to have fun killing you." Zim removed his battle armor's gloves, the dim light of the chamber reflecting off his claws.

Zim lunged at Dib… but then a laser blast cut through the air between them, making him stop short. Startled, everyone in the room turned to the entrance, and got a surprise.

Arnor was in the doorway, leaning against the side of the hole, and pointing his rifle in their direction. His skin was deathly pale, his antennae were limp, and blood was leaking from his eyes. The rifle shook in his hands as he glared at Zim and said, "Not… done with… you… dookie."

Zim backed up, but his manner indicated that he was not intimidated. "Please, you can barely even stand up or speak, and you think you can kill me?"

Arnor managed a weak smile as he lifted the rifle. "No me," he grunted out, "Him." And with that, Arnor swung the rifle towards Dib and fired. The blast shattered the adhesive, and Dib fell to the floor. He looked up at Arnor, who smiled back, before the rifle fell from his hands. The last flicker of intelligence and life in his eyes went out as his life-clock hit zero, and he collapsed.

Dib didn't waste a moment to take the opportunity Arnor had given him. He tackled Zim to the ground, and instantly began punching him in the face. At least, until Zim caught one of his fists in his hand. Twisting the fist painfully, he pushed it aside and punched Dib in the face. Dib fell back, and was hit in the side with one of Prime's tentacles. He went flying backwards, slamming into the doorway.

Zim charged towards Dib, who quickly rolled out of the way, just barely missing being hit by the spider legs. Bumping into Arnor's body, Dib grabbed the rifle from beside it and aimed at Zim. However, Zim grabbed the end of the rifle before Dib could fire, and crushed it, preventing it from firing. Cursing, Dib ducked as another spider leg slashed at him, then shifted the rifle in his hands, and when he came back up, swung it like a club. Zim, unprepared for this, was hit in the head and staggered back. Dib swung again and again, hitting Zim in the head and chest. Zim fell back, landing on his back. Dib held the rifle over his head, prepared to deliver a finishing blow.

"I don't think so!" Prime bellowed. A tentacle swung out and hit Dib in the chest, sending him flying out of the hole in the doorway. Zim staggered to his feet, blood flowing from several wounds on his head, and spat out a tooth as he advanced towards the hole. But he stopped as he heard a beeping sound behind him. Turning around, he saw the light on top of the teleportation machine flashing. Suddenly, two pods detached from the Voot, flew to opposite walls of the room, and emitted blinding flashes of light.

As Dib got to his feet in the outer chamber, he saw the light from the inner chamber. Running forward, Dib entered the chamber and found it completely empty. Zim, Prime, the Voot… everything was gone. For a moment, Dib was confused, and then he remembered what Zim had said about the machine he was building. "They teleported out," he muttered, "They got away. Damn it!"

Suddenly, a thought hit Dib. "He said he was going back to his ship. They can't be too far away." He turned to leave, but paused and looked at Arnor's corpse. "I'll get them. I promise." And then he ran out, hoping 'Tak' could locate the _Vengeance_ before Zim and Prime could complete their escape.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**A/N: Wow, this turned out a **_**lot**_** longer than I thought it would. In fact, I think this is the longest thing that I have ever written. I hope the length makes up for the wait.**

**Only two chapters and the epilogue left. I'll get right to work on the next one.**

**Until then, read and review!**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Here we are people. The second-to-last chapter of 'Reckoning.' There's going to be plenty of action this chapter - if this were a TV show, this would be a two-part season finale. But enough of my rambling, read on!**

**Disclaimer: All non-canon characters and concepts belong to me. Everything else belongs to Jhonen Vasquez.**

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Zim blinked his eyes to clear them as the flash of light faded. When his sight went back to normal, he saw that he, Prime and everything else that was in the chamber was now in the hanger bay of the _Vengeance._ But, since Dib had been _outside_ the chamber when the teleporter activated, that meant he was still down on the planet. Which meant that Zim had just lost his chance to kill him.

"Frag it!" Zim snarled, punching a nearby wall.

"Is everything all right, master?" the computer asked.

"Yes, yes," Zim said dismissively, despite the fact that he was still simmering over recent events, "It's nothing, just-"

"Enough blather!" Prime shouted, making Zim jump, "We have no time to waste, Zim. Take me up to the bridge and hook me into the combat and navigational systems. You'll need me at the helm if we are going to get past Rankor's forces."

Zim raised his antennae in confusion and stared at Prime. "Err… you mean Red and Purple's forces, right?"

Prime's optics narrowed as he glared at Zim. "Are you deaf? That's what I just said!"

"No it isn't," the computer said carefully, as if afraid to say the wrong thing to his master's master. And apparently, he did.

"You _dare_ to contradict ME?!" Prime roared, lashing out wildly with his tentacles. Zim ducked, just barely avoiding getting his head knocked off by one.

"Computer, play along," Zim hissed into his communicator, too softly for Prime to hear, "He's lost his mind. Just agree with whatever he says."

"Understood," the computer replied through the communicator, before addressing the deranged Control Brain, "I apologize, Lord Prime. There must have been a problem with my audio receptors."

This seemed to calm Prime down, as he retracted his tentacles with a grunt. He then turned his attention back to Zim.

"Why am I still down here? Take me to the bridge, now!"

Zim bowed. "At once, my Lord," he said, before looking around, "GIR! Where are you?"

The Voot's cockpit opened up and GIR popped up.

"Helllllooooo!" the faulty SIR said, stretching the word out farther than was necessary. Zim placed his hands on his hips as he gave his servant an inquisitive look.

"GIR, what were you doing in there?"

"I was taking a nap with my moose and my pig!" GIR shouted, holding up a stuffed moose and a rubber pig.

Zim rolled his eyes, then shook his head and said, "Look, just take Prime up to the bridge. I'll join you shortly."

GIR's eyes flashed red as he saluted. He then ran forward, and somehow managed to lift Prime over his head without any visible strain. Then, his eyes went back to their normal cyan.

"Let's go upstairs, Mister Brain!" he shouted, and then ran off, carrying Prime out of the room.

"Are you sure it's safe to keep this psychopath onboard, sir?" the computer asked, once Prime was out of hearing range. Zim merely sighed.

"For the time being, we have no choice. But don't worry- soon we'll have escaped from here, and then we can dispose of Prime. From this moment forth, Zim serves no one." Zim marched into one of the elevator tubes and hit a button on the control panel.

"Uh, sir? That button sends you to the main lab, not the bridge."

"I know," Zim said with a grin, "I need to make a few… preparations, before we fight our way out of here."

He started chuckling as the elevator moved up the tube, which turned into a full-blown laugh by the time the hanger was out of sight.

"Who says I can't plan ahead? Mwua, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

XXXXXXX

Dib panted for breath as he reached the entrance that Arnor's troops had blown in the tunnel no more than a couple of hours earlier. On the way back to the entrance, he had passed by the bodies of the Elite Guard, as well as the inert forms of the Gladiators- apparently, when Prime had fled they had all automatically deactivated.

Dib wasn't exactly complaining, seeing as the only weapon he had was his blaster. He'd left the busted assault rifle in the main chamber, since he didn't have the time or the knowledge to fix a busted alien weapon.

Gathering as much strength as he could in his legs, Dib sprang into the air, just barely managing to grab the edge of the hole in the ceiling. With a grunt of effort, Dib began climbing up the side of the hole towards the top. After a few minutes of climbing, Dib pulled himself over the edge of the hole and onto the surface. Willing himself not to collapse, he got to his feet and ran over to the Spittle Runner.

"What happened?" 'Tak' asked, confusion and some slight concern on her holographic face, "My sensors detected a massive energy burst. And where are Second Tallest Arnor and the Elite Guard?"

"They're dead," Dib said coldly, "Zim and Prime killed them and then teleported out - that would be the energy burst you detected. Think you can trace where it went?"

'Tak' nodded, and her holographic head was replaced by screens displaying information Dib couldn't begin to comprehend. "Got them," she said after a few moments, her voice coming through the communications console. A display of Irk and its moons appeared over the holographic panel in the center, with a red dot flashing near the second-largest moon. "They've teleported to a ship that's in low orbit over Caedus."

"Probably hid his ship there when the fighting stared," Dib mumbled, before asking, "How long will it take to get there?"

The display morphed back into 'Tak's head, which said, "Approximately ten minutes. Do you actually have a plan this time?"

"Nope," Dib said, as the viewport slid into place, "But I should have one by the time we get there… hopefully."

'Tak's response to this was something in Irken that Dib was fairly sure he didn't want translated.

XXXXXXX

The computer watched warily as Prime hooked himself into the main console on the bridge. The Control Brain's optics were constantly brightening and dimming, and he had been mumbling to himself since he got there. Even more unsettling was the fact that his mood kept fluctuating: one moment he was disturbingly happy, the next he was dangerously angry, and the moment after that he almost sounded depressed. The computer was wishing Zim would go ahead and get rid of him already, when the doors to the bridge slid open.

Zim marched into the room, his battle armor replaced with his normal uniform, and a strangely satisfied smirk on his face. Prime looked up from his work and glared at his 'minion.'

"Where have you been?" he snapped.

Zim's smirk faltered for a second as he tried to come up with a lie, but then it was back on his face as he said, "I was checking on the status of the hyperspace drive, as you instructed, my Lord."

"What? Oh, right… good work," Prime muttered, before going back to work. The computer would have raised an eyebrow if it had any - Prime had given Zim no such instructions. He must have been even further into his psychosis than the computer had thought if he couldn't even remember what he had and hadn't said.

Zim walked over to the viewport, and looked out at the distant battle between the Armada and his forces. The remaining Devastators had grouped together so that their shields were overlapping, thus granting them increased strength. But at this point, it was just a delaying action. The Devastators were only keeping the Armada busy long enough for him to escape- that was the beauty of automated warships. They were expendable.

Suddenly, the bridge shook.

"What was that?" Zim shouted as he steadied himself against a console. He got his answer as a certain Spittle Runner flew past the viewport, firing energy blasts at the _Vengeance._

"Dib," Zim hissed.

"He's sending us a message, master. Should I put him on?" the computer said. Zim merely grunted, which the computer took as a 'yes.' A holo-screen opened up on the viewport, and Dib appeared.

"So, now that I have your attention," he said, "Are you ready to finish what we started back on Earth?"

Zim's lips curled into a sneer. "You don't know when to quit, do you dirt-monkey?" he snarled. Dib only smirked at his rival.

"No, I don't," he said, before turning his attention to Prime and said, "Hey Prime, want to know what I think of your 'superior intellect'?"

Before Prime could answer, Dib pulled down on one of his eyelids and blew a raspberry.

Prime's eyes glowed in rage as he smashed the holo-screen, activated the _Vengeance's_ laser cannons and targeted the Spittle Runner. Unfortunately, when Zim had built the _Vengeance_, he had had the very un-Irken thought of _not_ equipping it with a lot of weapons. There were only the two cannons, one on either side of the spherical viewport that covered the bridge. As the cannons fired, the smaller, nimbler Spittle Runner easily evaded the blasts from the slow-moving turrets, and returned fire.

Being inside the _Vengeance's_ shields, there was nothing blocking the Spittle Runner's own weapons. As the starboard cannon turned to directly face the incoming Spittle Runner, the small fighter craft fired off a stream of plasma missiles that obliterated the cannon, as well as some of the surrounding hull. The port cannon turned and fired at the Runner, just barely missing it as it turned and fired a laser blast at the turret, destroying its rotation motors and locking the cannon in place.

The fit that Prime then threw implied that he would be foaming at the mouth if he had one. "Zim! Kill him! Kill him NOW!!!"

"With pleasure," Zim said, venom dripping off his words. Turning on his heel, he ran off of the bridge, heading towards the hanger bay and the Voot. 'Time to finish this,' he thought.

XXXXXXX

The Spittle Runner skimmed over the surface of the _Vengeance_, Dib shooting everything that looked important. As they neared the escape pods, Dib launched a salvo of plasma missiles, which caused a chain reaction that destroyed all of the pods and blew a hole in the side of the ship. Atmosphere vented out before a force field popped into place.

"Nice shot," 'Tak' commented as she moved to avoid the debris from the explosion - she handled the flying, while Dib handled the weapons.

"Thanks," Dib said, "How much longer do you think it'll take for Zim to show up?"

BOOM!

An energy blast hit the Runner in the tail, sending it spinning. As 'Tak' righted herself, Dib looked out the viewport to see the Voot heading right towards them.

"I'd say about two seconds," 'Tak' said dryly, answering the previous question. She then fired the Runner's thrusters, moving it out of the way just as the Voot fired off another blast.

"Remember the plan?" Dib asked as he activated a laser turret on the top of the Runner and fired at the pursing Voot.

"Kind of hard not to, seeing as you just came up with it _five minutes ago_," 'Tak' snapped.

Any reply Dib had was cut off when a holo-screen popped up on the viewport to reveal Zim's grinning image.

"Ready to surrender yet Dib-worm?" the renegade Irken asked. Dib glared back at his nemesis.

"Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing, Spaceboy," he said, and then deactivated the holo-screen.

Suddenly, 'Tak' hit the braking thrusters, making Dib slam into the console and the Voot overshoot. Dib quickly re-oriented himself and fired at the turning Cruiser, hitting it several times and destroying one of its weapon turrets.

"You couldn't have fired sooner?" 'Tak' asked.

"You couldn't have given me a little warning?" Dib retorted, more than a little irritated.

Zim fired off a blast from his remaining weapon turret, forcing 'Tak' to fly downwards. As the Spittle Runner headed towards the bottom of the _Vengeance,_ Dib turned up the power on the laser cannons, until they were firing with such intensity and speed that their edges actually started to melt. However, Zim had been trained for space combat for a lot longer than Dib had. He easily avoided every shot, and managed to get a few of his own in.

Just as they reached the bottom of the _Vengeance,_ one of Zim's blasts hit the topside cannon and blew it off, followed by one to one of the engines. This caused an overload in the Runner's electrical systems, shutting down the other weapons and causing 'Tak' to screech in pain. The Runner came to a stop, floating in space just a few dozen yards away from the hanger bay.

The Voot floated down, hovering between the damaged Runner and the hanger. The holo-screen popped up on the viewport again, once more showing Zim, who was grinning triumphantly. "You know something Dib?" he asked, "It seems almost anti-climatic that our battle ends in this manner. I was hoping for a bit more of a challenge for our final fight. But I guess if life's taught me anything, it's that we don't always get what we want." Zim smirked as his finger hovered over the trigger of his remaining plasma cannon. "Now then, any last words human?"

"Just this," Dib said with a grin, confusing Zim, "I hope you've got airbags in that thing. Now!" He shouted the last part to 'Tak', who redirected all the Spittle Runner's remaining power to its only operational engine, causing the battered ship to fly forward and slam into the Voot. The Runner's claws quickly extended and grabbed hold of Zim's ship, keeping it from going anywhere.

The two connected ships flew into the hanger, hit the floor, and slid across it. There was a horrible screeching noise as the bottom of both ships started peeling off, and the Voot - being in front, and therefore taking the most damage - had both of its engines ripped off. 'Tak' retracted the Runner's claws and fired the braking thrusters. The Spittle Runner slid to a stop, but the Voot continued to slid and partially roll, until it hit the back wall of the hanger. There was a muffled banging noise, and smoke started coming out of the cracked viewport as something inside the Voot caught fire.

Dib shakily pulled himself to his feet and climbed out of the Runner. He stared at the wreckage of the Voot as 'Tak' said, "For the record, that was the part of your so-called 'plan' that I hate the most!"

"Hey, we're not dead, right?" Dib said, peeling his sight away from his enemy's ship to look 'Tak' in the eye. "How soon can you repair the ship enough that it can fly us out of here?"

"On emergency power only?" 'Tak' asked incredulously, "We'll be lucky if I can _ever_ get it to fly again."

"Well, you better," Dib said over his shoulder as he headed towards the elevator, "One way or another, we'll need a quick escape." 'Tak' merely watched Dib walk away, glaring holes in his back, and then shut off her holographic head as she focused all her remaining energy on fixing the Spittle Runner. Therefore, she didn't see the viewport of the Voot get smashed out, as Zim- battered, bloody and burned, but still very much alive- climbed out of the cockpit.

"Oh, this isn't over yet, Dib," he spat, "Not by a long shot."

With that said, Zim limped off after his enemy, intending to finish their fight once and for all.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**A/N: Only one chapter left folks. And can I set up for a finale or what? Next chapter will have even more action as the final battle between Prime, Zim, and Dib begins.**

**Until then, read and review!**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Here it is, ladies and gentlemen. The final chapter of 'Reckoning.' It's been quite a ride, hasn't it? And now, here comes the stunning conclusion - I can honestly say that none of you will have seen this coming. Oh, and remember that lecture 'Tak' gave on hyperspace back in chapter eight? Well, the importance of that is going to be revealed in this one. How? You'll see.**

**But enough talk, read on!**

**Disclaimer: All non-canon characters and concepts belong to me. Everything else belongs to Jhonen Vasquez.**

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Zim growled as he entered one of the elevator tubes and hit the button for the bridge level. As the elevator moved upwards, Zim rested against the wall, letting his PAK begin repairing the damage he'd received when the Voot crashed, while he pondered his next move. He knew that Dib would head towards the bridge to try and eliminate Prime, and Zim couldn't let that happen - not out of any love for that raving maniac he had temporarily sworn his loyalty to, of course. But Zim knew that Dib wouldn't stand a chance against Prime, and if anyone was going to kill Dib, it was going to be Zim. He needed some way to distract Dib long enough for him to catch up…

A light went off in Zim's head and he shot up as inspiration hit him. Activating his communicator, he quickly switched it over to GIR's frequency.

"GIR!" he shouted, "GIR, come in!"

After a few moments, GIR's all-to-happy voice chimed in over the communicator, "Hi, Master!"

"GIR, the Dib-human is heading towards the bridge. Intercept him. Now!"

"I don't wanna!"

"Oh, for the love of-! GIR, just pretend his big head's a piñata!"

"Candy!" GIR shouted, before terminating the link. As Zim put his communicator away, he leaned back against the wall and grinned.

"Ah, poor stink-beast," he muttered, "I almost pity you."

With that said, Zim burst out in one of his trademark evil laughs.

XXXXXXX

Dib rolled out of the elevator melodramatically, landing in a crouch and quickly sweeping his gaze across the corridor, blaster in hand. Seeing that it was empty, and that he had just wasted a heroic entrance, Dib quickly lowered the blaster and headed off down the corridor. According to the schematics for the _Vengeance_ that he had stolen a few months earlier - during one of his usual hacks of Zim's databases - the bridge should be directly down the corridor he was now in.

As he reached a corner, he paused as he thought he heard something. Suddenly, a blue and silver object slammed into him so hard that one of his ribs cracked, despite the battle armor he was still wearing.

"Hi, Bighead!" GIR screeched. With a grunt of pain and exertion, Dib grabbed the insane robot and threw him off. GIR slammed into the wall, but quickly got back up as his blue parts turned red and weapons popped out of his body. Clutching his side in pain, Dib rolled out of the way from multiple lasers and returned fire with his blaster. A few blasts knocked off a couple of GIR's mini-cannons, but the blasts that hit his actual body bounced off without doing any damage.

Dib cursed, then ducked as GIR jumped at him again, his metal hands having sprouted claws. Dib quickly ran off down the corridor, ignoring the pain in his chest as he heard GIR chase after him.

'There's got to be a way to get rid of GIR,' Dib thought. Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks as he saw a circular doorway in the middle of one of the walls, with a control panel next to it labeled, '**GARBAGE REMOVAL POD.**'

"That'll work," Dib said, quickly slapping the 'Open' button on the panel, and turning around as GIR rounded the corner and pointed his weapons at him. Before he could fire any of them, however, Dib said, "Hey, GIR. Want some tacos?"

GIR's red parts turned back to blue and he retracted his weapons as he cocked his head and asked, "Tacos?"

Dib nodded and pointed to the open Garbage Pod. "Yep, they're right in there."

"TACOS!" GIR shouted, jumping into the pod. Dib quickly hit the 'Close' and 'Eject' buttons. The entrance to the pod sealed shut, and it launched itself from the side of the ship, carrying with it a happily shrieking SIR unit, who had completely forgotten why he was in there in the first place. Dib felt a slight pang of guilt over doing that to GIR - then he felt a not-so-slight pang of pain from his cracked rib, and he decided he didn't feel so guilty.

He turned to start heading towards the bridge again, when a bolt of energy shot down the corridor, just barely missing him. Dib spun around to find Zim at the other end of the passageway, one of his spider legs still crackling with energy.

"Going somewhere?" the Irken asked.

Dib could only stare in shock. "How could you have possibly survived that crash?" he asked, after managing to find his voice.

Zim merely laughed, "Foolish worm! Irkens are not so easily killed. Which is more than I can say for you!" That sentence was barely out of Zim's mouth before he launched himself at Dib.

Dib tried to fire his blaster, but Zim tackled him to the ground and sent the blaster spinning across the floor. Dib let out a scream of pain as Zim kicked him in the side, agitating his damaged rib. Zim smirked as he landed punch after punch on Dib face, the force and frequency of the strikes forcing the atmospheric bubble of the battle suit to become visible, and almost made it burst open. Rearing up on two of his spider legs, Zim lifted the other two in the air, preparing to strike at the semi-conscious human.

"Goodbye Dib!" he shouted as he brought them down… and Dib caught them.

Zim's eyes widened in shock as Dib grappled with the struggling spider legs, and finally, with a cry of rage, he brought them down on the floor so hard that they broke at the last joint, the spear-points at the end coming free. Zim pulled the sparking, damaged spider legs back into his PAK and stepped back in shock and slight fear as Dib got up, tossed the spear-points aside, and glared at him.

"My turn," he snarled, and lunged at Zim. With screams of fury, Dib attacked with all the hate he'd been bottling up since Zim's last attack on Earth. "This is for all the people your Devastators killed!" he shouted, as he punched Zim right between the eyes. "This is for treating Earth like your own private testing ground!" He landed a right hook to Zim's jaw. "And this - this is for Arnor!" He hit Zim in the side of the head, sending him sprawling.

Dib stood panting, his side aching as he hunched over and rested his hands on his knees. He looked up as Zim pulled himself to his feet and spat some green blood out of his mouth.

"Impressive," he said, "You've come far in a short time, Dib. I'll remember this battle with pride for years to come."

"What makes you think you have 'years to come'?" Dib asked, painfully pulling himself upright.

Zim grinned as he said, "This."

Faster than Dib could blink, the former Invader dashed forward and slammed his fist into Dib's stomach. Dib doubled over, and then Zim kicked him in the face, sending him flying down the corridor.

As Dib struggled to try and get up, Zim slowly walked towards him, deciding to savor every moment of his ultimate victory.

"You know something, Dib?" he asked, "I have been looking forward to this for years. You've been a thorn in my side for so long, I'm going to enjoy killing you. And do you want to know what I'm going to do after I've killed you? Once I've made my escape from here - and I promise you, it will be soon - I'm going to return to Earth, and burn it to a cinder! Your sister, your father, everyone you've ever known - they will all be made to suffer for all the pain and humiliation you've caused me." Zim paused as he reached Dib and looked down at him. "What do you think of that?"

Dib glared at Zim, and then quickly rolled over and grabbed one of the discarded spear-points. Before this had even fully registered with Zim, Dib lunged forward and stabbed the spear-point into Zim's chest. The Irken's eyes popped fully open as he froze in shock, and after a moment's pause, he coughed up blood and then slowly looked down at the weapon imbedded in his body.

"I think if you're going to kill someone, kill them. Don't stand there talking about it," Dib said, as he twisted the spear-point before letting go. Zim shakily raised a hand to touch the blood pooling out of the hole in his chest in order to confirm that he had indeed been stabbed. He then looked up at Dib, who had gotten to his feet and was now looking at him. He gathered his remaining strength and pulled the spear-point out, letting it fall to the ground.

"You… will… pay," Zim gasped, blood leaking out of his mouth with every word. Then his eyes closed and he collapsed to the floor.

Dib could only stare at his fallen foe in shock, not accepting at first that he had actually just killed Zim. But he was lying there, in a slowly expanding pool of green blood.

"One down," Dib muttered to himself, as the shock wore off. He then glanced at Zim one last time, then turned and ran down the corridor towards the bridge.

If he had stayed a few more minutes, however, he would have seen the wound in Zim's chest seal up as the PAK healed him. He would have then seen the PAK shock Zim's body with several hundred volts of electricity, followed by his eyes popping open and him shooting up with a gasp. The spear-point had pierced his heart, but because Zim had pulled it out, the PAK had been able to repair the organ, which it had then restarted.

Zim looked down the corridor where Dib had disappeared.

"Nice try," he sneered, "But it'll take more than that to defeat me, human."

XXXXXXX

Dib paused as he reached the doors to the bridge, both because of the gnawing pain in his side, and because he needed a moment to prepare himself. This was the most important part of his plan - if he didn't pull this off just right, he was screwed. Taking one last breath, Dib readied the blaster he'd retrieved after he'd stabbed Zim, and opened the doors.

And was immediately grabbed by one of Prime's tentacles.

The metal tendril pulled him into the room, dragging him before Prime himself. "Did you really think you could sneak up on me?" the mad Control Brain asked, "I am now fully integrated into the _Vengeance's_ computer systems-"

"Unfortunately," the computer mumbled.

"-And I have access to the security monitors. I saw you coming from the moment you got onboard. And with no element of surprise, did you really think you could defeat me? The Primary Control Brain, the supreme intellect, the ultimate tactician, the-"

"Okay! I get it!" Dib shouted as he struggled in Prime's grasp, "You're a smart guy. Now please, shut up!"

Prime's eyes glowed in fury, and he tightened his tentacle around Dib's body, making him gasp for breath and drop his blaster. "You _dare_ to speak back to me, human?! You are nothing but a shaved monkey! A hairless rat! I was conquering worlds when your ancestors were still struggling to make fire! You have no right to speak to me in such a disrespectful manner!"

As Prime finished that sentence, he flung Dib at a wall.

_Crack!_

"AARRGGHH!" Dib shouted as his right arm broke upon contact with the hard metal surface. He fell to the floor, landing next to a computer console. Using his good arm to pull himself up, Dib leaned over the console, tears of pain running down his face. Hearing the doors to the bridge open, Dib turned around and got the shock of his life as he saw Zim walk into the room, shirt stained with blood and murder written on his face.

"…How?" was all Dib could voice as he clutched his wounded arm with his good one.

Zim merely smirked as he deployed his remaining spider legs and said, "Zim cannot be killed by a mere human. Let that be the last lesson you ever learn in this life, Dib."

Prime let out a giddy cackle as he waved his tentacles in the air.

"Maybe you shouldn't have interfered, human," he said with a cackle. Then, to both his and Zim's surprise, Dib grinned.

"And maybe you shouldn't have let me near this console," he said, as he reached out with his good hand and hit a button, activating the command he'd typed in when he had been leaning over the console.

"Hyperspace drive activated," the computer said, causing Zim's eyes to widen in panic.

"What?! Disengage! We're still in a gravity well!"

XXXXXXX

Unfortunately for Zim, it was too late. The hyperspace pods attached to the engines converted their dark matter to dark energy and fired it out the engines in a slightly upward angle. However, the gravity field of the moon below the _Vengeance_ pulled the dark energy particles back down into the engines. The particles being pulled back into the engines collided with the ones still being forced out, releasing massive amounts of energy.

Bolts of energy danced around the engines and the hyperspace pods, resulting in numerous explosions that could be felt even up on the bridge.

XXXXXXX

The bridge shuddered, staggering both Zim and Dib, the latter grabbing his broken arm in order to keep it from slamming into anything.

"The engines are offline," the computer said, its usual monotone still in place, but with a note of fear in it. The room shuddered even harder as there was an explosion so powerful those on the bridge could actually hear it. "Correction," the computer said, now sounding VERY afraid, "The engines have been destroyed."

"You stupid fool!" Prime shouted as he glared at Dib, "We'll be pulled in by the moon's gravity- we'll crash and burn! You've killed us all!"

"I wouldn't say _all_ of us," Dib said with a smirk, as he turned towards the viewport… and the Spittle Runner rose into view. It was still very damaged, but it was flying. And it soon revealed that its weapons were working, as it fired a laser blast at the viewport, blowing a hole in it.

Air started flowing out through the hole, taking with it anything that wasn't bolted down. Which happened to include Dib. As he flew towards the hole, Zim - who had grabbed hold of a console - fired off a blast from his spider legs, trying to stop Dib from escaping. But he missed, and Dib flew out the hole, just before an emergency force field popped up.

Dib flew through the empty space between the bridge's viewport and the Spittle Runner's open cockpit, very grateful for the atmospheric bubble of the battle suit. He hit the pilot's chair hard, aggravating his wounds and causing him to shout in pain.

"Are you alright?" 'Tak' asked as she closed the cockpit.

"I'm fine," Dib said through clenched teeth, "Just get us out of here."

'Tak' nodded, and the Runner turned and shot away from the _Vengeance,_ which was starting to drift downwards.

XXXXXXX

Back on the bridge, Prime was screaming his proverbial head off. "No! This cannot be! I cannot die! I am Prime, ruler of the Irken Empire! I cannot be defeated by a mere human!"

Zim blocked out the frantically screaming Control Brain as he stood by the viewport and quickly reviewed his escape options- and realized he didn't have any. The Voot was incapacitated, the escape pods had been destroyed, and there was no place for him to teleport to. Dib had sabotaged the _Vengeance_ so that it would crash, but not before eliminating all his means for getting off.

'Well played, human,' Zim said to himself, 'Well played.'

Outside the viewport, the view was changing from space to the rocky, icy surface of the moon Caedus. The _Vengeance's_ shields were starting to glow red from the friction of passing through Caedus' thin atmosphere, and at any moment they would collapse and pieces of the ship's hull would start peeling off due to shear heat and pressure.

"Master," the computer said, "We'll impact the moon in less than five minutes. What do we do?" Zim took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He then said the last thing that would ever pass his lips.

"We die."

XXXXXXX

The _Vengeance's_ shields collapsed as it passed through the stratosphere into the troposphere, and as Zim predicted, pieces of the ship's hull started flying off. Minutes later, the _Vengeance_ impacted the surface of Caedus. It skidded for a few miles, creating a humongous trench, before the bottom curve of the ship broke off, triggering a series of explosions that blew the rest of the _Vengeance_ apart.

Zim's last thought was a silent prayer to the Irken gods that the contingency plan he had put in place just a little over an hour ago would do what it needed to. Then a fireball consumed the bridge, and he knew no more.

XXXXXXX

Dib watched from orbit as the _Vengeance_ crashed and exploded. Mechanical arms from the walls of the cockpit were removing his battle suit and tending to his wounds, but he didn't even notice them as he watched his arch-enemy's life end.

"I don't believe it," 'Tak' said, "It actually worked."

"Yeah, it did, didn't it?" Dib said slowly, before a smile formed on his face, "Zim's gone. It's finally over."

For the first time since this whole ordeal had started, 'Tak' cracked a smile.

"We should stop by the _Massive_ and let the Tallest know what has happened. They'll want to know that pest's finally dead - oh, and that Prime's threat has been neutralized, of course." As the Spittle Runner turned to head towards the Armada, which was finishing off the last Devastators, Dib took one last look at the smoke cloud rising from the _Vengeance's_ crash site and repeated his previous comment.

"It's finally over."

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**A/N: Or is it? Now, before anyone flames me for killing Zim, I want you all to remember two things: 1) Zim had a contingency plan, and 2) I am a fan of twist endings. When I post the epilogue, you'll all see what I'm talking about.**

**Until then, click the green and white button at the bottom of the page, and let me know what you think of the rest of the chapter.**


	16. Epilogue

**A/N: Well, here it is, everyone. The epilogue to 'Reckoning.' It seems just like yesterday I was writing the first chapter of 'The Puppet Master,' and now here I am, almost a year later, writing the last part of the story begun in that fic. And 'Reckoning' has done pretty well for itself - as of this writing, it's got 66 reviews, 1257 hits, is under 11 favorite story lists, and is on 6 alerts. There are plenty of people I'd like to thank for this, but I'll do that at the end. Read on!**

**Disclaimer: All non-canon characters and concepts belong to me. Everything else belongs to Jhonen Vasquez.**

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The next day, the _Massive_ floated in orbit over Irk, while the rest of the Armada was busy clearing away the wreckage from the space battles against the Devastators. In the hanger bay of the flagship, Dib stood next to the Spittle Runner, helping 'Tak' make the final repairs to the ship. He was now back in his regular clothes, under which he wore bandages for his wounds, and his right arm was in a sling.

"There we go," 'Tak' said, "It's not at 100 percent, but it'll be able to get us back to Earth."

"Glad to hear it," Dib said as he put down the welding tool he'd been using and dusted off his good hand, "After all of this, it'll be good to be home."

"Hey, human."

Dib looked up to see the Tallest enter the hanger, followed by Gor - who'd been promoted from Pretty-Mighty Third Tallest to Sort-of-Mighty Second Tallest in light of Arnor's death - and a few Elite Guards. Dib gave them all a dry look and said, "Let me guess- you decided to shoot me out the airlock anyway, right?"

"Can we?" Gor asked the Tallest, clutching his hands together excitedly.

"Unfortunately, no," Purple said, answering both of them, "The Control Brains said that we, and I quote, 'should be grateful to the human that helped end Prime's madness once and for all.'"

"And I happen to agree with them," Red said, giving his co-ruler the Irken version of the evil eye, "Not so much because of what happened with Prime - since I didn't even know he existed until yesterday - but because he got rid of that pain-in-the-ass traitor Zim. That alone is worth sparing his life." Red then turned his attention back to Dib and reached into the pocket band on his armor. "So human, I've therefore decided to reward you… with this sandwich." He then pulled a sandwich out of his pocket band and gave it to Dib.

Dib blinked as he looked at the sandwich now in his hand, and then looked up at the Tallest.

"You're… joking, right?" he said, "I practically won this war for you guys _single handed,_ and you pay me back with a _sandwich?_"

"For us, that's being generous," Purple said with a shrug, "Now beat it. We don't want your inferior lungs breathing our air anymore."

With that, the whole group of Irkens turned and left the room. Dib watched them leave, then shook his head and muttered something about ungrateful jerks. He climbed into the cockpit and tossed the sandwich into the back compartment.

"So, back to Earth then?" 'Tak' asked, closing the viewport and flying out of the hanger.

"Yep," Dib replied, getting into a comfortable position in the chair.

"What are you going to do now, anyway?" 'Tak' asked, "After all, now that Zim's gone, you don't have anyone to fight to protect that quaint little planet of yours."

Dib shrugged, careful not to aggravate his healing arm. "I didn't get into paranormal studies to fight Zim. There are still plenty of things on Earth left to study that so-called 'real science' ignores- and who knows, maybe people will take me more seriously now, because of the Devastator attack."

"Whatever you say," 'Tak' said, shaking her head, "But bear in mind that no matter what happens, we had a deal. I helped you to defeat Zim, now you let me go, so that I may find my mistress."

"Yeah, I know," Dib said, holding his good hand up defensively, then he paused and said, "And, uh, when you do find Tak… say hi for me."

'Tak' smirked at Dib.

"Why?" she asked, "Got a little thing for her?"

"Shut up!" Dib snapped, his cheeks flushing red. 'Tak' merely laughed as the hyperspace drives powered up and the Spittle Runner disappeared in a flash of light, on its way back to Earth.

XXXXXXX

On Caedus, smoke still rose from the wreckage of the _Vengeance._ Due to the thin atmosphere, the fires weren't very large, but they were numerous, and the smoke clouds billowed high into the air. Suddenly, something shot through one of the smoke columns and hit the ground. As it pulled itself up, it was revealed to be GIR, currently in duty mode.

After the garbage pod he'd been tricked into had been ejected from the _Vengeance,_ it had also been pulled into Caedus' gravity well and crashed on the moon. For a while, GIR had been content to stay there, playing in the garbage, but then he had received a signal on a special frequency designed only for him, which had switched him over to duty mode. He had then followed the signal, which had led him to the crash site.

He now picked his way through the wreckage, trying to locate the source of the signal. Finally, he reached what was left of the bridge, and turned over the remains of a console. And there, slightly burned and with a small crack in one side, was Zim's PAK. Aside from the minor damage, the only thing different about it was that one of the pink nodes on the back was flashing.

GIR's red parts changed to blue as he stared at the flashing node.

"Ooooo! What does this do?" he asked. He reached out with one of his fingers and pushed the node, which slid in like a button.

The node stopped flashing, but then flared brightly, as did the other nodes. The PAK shook, and as GIR stared at it, a cable shot out of the device and latched onto his head. Electricity cackled from the PAK, across the cable, and into GIR. The blue lights in his eyes and other colored parts went dead as data was poured into his mind, quickly overwriting his own simple code, and taking control of his body.

The nodes on the PAK went dead, and the cable collapsed to the ground, having fulfilled its purpose. Energy continued to crackle around GIR for a few moments, before it stopped. The lights on GIR's body flickered back on, this time in a shade of red lighter than the usual 'duty mode' color. He slowly blinked, then looked down at his metal hands, and a grin appeared on his metal face.

"It actually worked! I am a genius!" he shouted… in Zim's voice.

He looked down at the PAK lying on the ground. It was a well-known fact that a PAK contained all the memories and thoughts of the Irken wearing it, so it had been a simple matter to reprogram the PAK to download his consciousness into a new body in case his was destroyed. Of course, then the question became what body to download to. He had felt bad about using GIR, once he'd decided on him, but it was the only choice that would guarantee his survival. SIR units were practically indestructible, after all, which would make him virtually immortal after the download. So, he programmed the PAK to activate a homing beacon on GIR's private frequency, and had then prayed that his PAK would prove as durable as his servant.

Zim stopped his reminiscing and walked away from his former PAK. Digging through the wreckage, the Irken-turned-robot finally found what he was looking for- Prime's remains.

The Control Brain's body was blackened and torn nearly in two. The internal wiring and circuitry was torn apart or incinerated altogether. One of the optics was missing, and the other one was cracked. Zim stared into his reflection in the glass-like surface of that optic, taking a moment to adjust to the fact that it was indeed his reflection.

He then said, "So, 'my Lord,' it seems as though I have outlasted you. But don't worry; I've learned much from you. Like you did, I've made my enemies think I am dead. Like you did, I will bide my time, until I can strike and take my revenge. But unlike you, I will _not_ make mistakes. I will _not_ be defeated. And I _will_ be victorious!"

Zim smashed the optic with his metal fist, then turned his robotic eyes towards the sky, looking at Irk, shining in the heavens. "If you could wait, Prime, so can I. Someday, I will take my revenge on the Irken Empire and Earth, and the age of Zim shall begin! Mwua, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**A/N: There it is my friends, the end of 'Reckoning.' I know that it just sort of stops, but my philosophy is that fiction should reflect life- and the battle between good and evil will never end.**

**Now, before anyone asks, I will NOT be writing a sequel (mostly because I have no idea what I'd do with one). But, should anyone be willing to write one themselves as a homage… well, I wouldn't complain.**

**However, while I won't be continuing this series, I am planning on a whole new saga. The first story in it is called "Shadows of the Future," and I'll be getting to work on it soon. But first, I have a few smaller projects I want to get out of the way, which I hope you'll all enjoy.**

**On a final note, I said at the beginning of the epilogue that there were some people I'd like to thank, and I'll do that now: JoeMerl, Anonymous Void, The Banished Prince, ngrey651, Amberkitty123, Liani Risate, Lunadoll419, Alohilani, EelvenGirl, Rebecca the Animorph, and Azvee. You've all been wonderful, especially those of you who have been with me since 'The Puppet Master.' I hope you'll all continue to read my work, and write your own.**

**Until next time, this is Zim'sMostLoyalServant signing off. Read and review!**


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